China In Revolution.xml

China in Revolution

THE :tlMIVERSI‘r^:.OF CHICAGO, .PRESS''

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1 HE Shakee-Shameen IV'Iassacre

China in Revolution

An Analysis of Politics and Militarism
under the Republic

By

Harley FARNSwoRTHtM^’t^NAiR

Professor of Far Eastern History and Institutions
The University of Chicago

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO • ILLINOIS

COPYRIGHT 1931 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
ALL rights reserved. PUBLISHED OCTOBER I93I

COMPOSED AND PRINTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S.A.

TO

HENRY MILTON WOLF

IN APPRECIATION OF HIS DISCRIMINATING
INTEREST IN THE FAR EASTERN (QUESTION
OVER A PERIOD OF YEARS, THIS STUDY OF
CERTAIN PHASES IS RESPECTFULLY
DEDICATED

*1

BOOKS BY HARLEY FARNSWORTH MacNAIR

Short Stories for Chinese Students (edited)

Introduction to W esteim History (in collaboration)

Modern Chinese History — Selected Readings
The Chinese Abroad

China s New Nationalism and Other Essays
China s hiternatmial Relations and Other Essays
Far Eastern International Relations (in collaboration)

China in Revolution

PREFACE

D uring the spring of 1930 the writer pre-
i sented in Chicago a series of public lectures
entitled “China in Revolution,” under the
auspices of the University College of the University of
Chicago. Revised and supplemented, these addresses
are incorporated in this study of contemporary China.
Owing to the limitations of space, and the fact that the
foreign relations of this country are considered at
length in the writer’s collaboration with Dr. H. B.
Morse m Far Eastern International Relatioiis (Houghton
Mifflin), no attempt is made here to discuss the foreign
problems involved, except in so far as it has been
necessary to refer to them to make clear the domestic
situation.

In the lectures an attempt was made, and in this
volume it has been continued, to clarify for the non-
specialist the conflicting aims, institutions, and person-
alities involved in a great struggle which has been in
process for more than a generation, and which is yet far
from completion. The approach is mainly factual, not
ideological or idealistic, and is that of the historical
student who attempts to be objective and who must be
nonpartisan. The patriotic participant in a revolution-
ary movement may shut his eyes to many disagreeable
conditions and assume that, while necessary, they are
purely transitory. Those who find their interests ad-
versely affected are likely to assume a condemnatory
attitude toward the changes in progress, and may even

PREFACE

viii

attempt to block them by demanding foreign.interfer-
ence on a humanitarianj political, or economic plea.
Whatever the personal feelings of the historian, he must,
if he is to remain true to his profession, disregard them
and present facts and describe conditions as he believes
them to have been.

To do this it has been necessary to list many of the
almost innumerable military campaigns which have
been waged since 1911, and to refer to a great number
of Chinese who have risen above — -and, in several
instances, sunk below — the horizon. The harassed and
hasty critic in these United States may be inclined to
cavil at the inclusion of so many wars, and personalities
with (to him) strange-sounding names, and may declare
that he cannot see the forest for the trees. To which it
may be retorted that the author is responsible for
neither, and that the critic is not as greatly incon-
venienced by their numbers as are the people of revolu-
tionary China. To assume that one can comprehend
contemporary conditions in that country without refer-
ring to the alarms and tragedies of war, and to the
military and civilian leaders who have played their
complicated roles therein, is to assume a condition con-
trary to fact. The reader may skip the names and cam-
paigns if he will, but let him rest assured that having
done so he will remain almost as happily ignorant at the
end as he was at the beginning of his reading. Glib gen-
eralizations with vague references to unhappy condi-
tions are easy; the facts are, for the most part, hard, but
the person who wishes to understand modern China may
find them worthy of consideration.

The assembling of material for such a study as this

IX

PREFACE

is a somewhat difficult task — but not for lack of sources
and volume. The writer was for considerably more than
a decade a resident of China and is enabled, accordingly,
to weigh his materials and sift conflicting evidence on
the basis of his personal contact with the Chinese and
their institutions, and the conditions prevalent in their
country. He has made free use of, and gratefully ac-
knowledges his indebtedness to, such sources of infor-
mation as those contained in The Chma Year Book of
the past several years (especially the several excellent
chapters on the Kuomingtang by Mr. George E.
Sokolsky), Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee’s Survey{s) of
International Affairs, the Chinese Social and Political
Science Review, the North China Daily News and Herald,
the China Weekly Review, and to personal conferences
and correspondence. Particularly valuable for chapter
xii were parts of Professor Guy W. Sarvis’ diary of his
journey up the Yangtze and through Szechwan during
the first quarter of 1931, which were placed at the dis-
posal of the author by Mrs. Sarvis.

For reading and criticizing certain chapters of the
manuscript the writer wishes to express his thanks to
his fritnds Mr. C. H. Li and Professor Samuel N.
Harper, who are not, however, to be assumed as being
in accord with the point of view and interpretations of
fact presented. To Mr. Clarence Hendershot, also,
gratitude is expressed for making available the photo-
graph used as a frontispiece.

The flood of material, critical and uncritical, on con-
temporary China and its ready accessibility appear to
render the inclusion of a bibliography unnecessary.

University OF Chicago
June 15, 1931

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ' , PAGE ;

L The Background . . . . . ' ■ . , . . . . , i

IL Yuan Shih-kai vs. Sun Yat-sen — ^the First Phase . 22

III. Yuan Shih-kai vs. Sun Yat-sen — ^' fHE Second Phase 34

IV. The War Lords, 1916-28 . . . ... 46

V. Sun Yat-sen and the Nationalist Movement . ^ . 65

VL The Ideology and Plans of Sun Yat-sen ... 78

VH. The Rise of Chiang Kai-shek and Borodin . . ' ' 91

VIIL Wuhan vs. Nanking . 108^

IX. The Completion of the First Phase of the Na-
tionalist Revolution . . . . . . . . .127

X. The Five-Power Government at Nanking . . . 138

XL Nationalist China, 1928-31 159

XIL The Hammer and Sickle vs. the Twelve-pointed

Star 188

Xlli. Conclusion 220

Appendix: Provisional Constitution Adopted by the Na-
tional People’s Convention, May 12, 1931 . . . 228

Index 237

CHAPTER I
THE BACKGROUND

r' r'^HE revolution through which China is now

1 passing is one which affects all phases of life.

M There are half-a-dozen or more revolutions in
progress: social, political, military, economic, intel-
lectual, religious. It would be difficult to find any aspect
of the life of the Chinese people which is not being
affected at the present moment. A hasty consideration
might lead one to the conclusion that nothing but con-
fusion has thus far resulted from the changes now tak-
ing place; at times one is inclined to conclude that the
more China changes the more it remains the same. This
is owing to the vast size of the country geographically,
the huge population, the lack of easy means of com-
munication, and the fact that the culture and civiliza-
tion of the Chinese people are ancient and largely au-
tochthonous. The question is often asked, “How long
will it he before the Chinese will settle down and behave
themselves? When will the revolution stop revolving?”
To which one generally replies hopefully, “Perhaps in
another hundred years.”

Fundamentally the revolutionary movements are the
result of China’s contacts with foreign peoples, ideas,
and institutions both at home and abroad; that is to
say, the foreign influences so powerful within the past
few generations have been in part brought to China by
aliens and in part — to a greater degree than is ordinarily

2

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

credited — by the Chinese people themselves who have
gone abroad and returned to their native lands affected
by their experiences abroad.

Politically or dynastically speaking, China has under-
gone many revolutions in the past. The country never
has constituted an unchanging entity in a world of
change; this is a superficial view which both Chinese
and foreigners have fostered, but it is a view, contrary to
fact as any student of China must admit after even a
little study. Another statement which may as well be
refuted at the outset is that the Chinese are an es-
sentially pacifistic people as compared with other
groups of the human race. The numerous dynastic
changes and the civil wars and rebellions from which
the country has suffered from the dawn of history, as
well as the growth of China territorially into a vast
empire, are sufficient to demonstrate the truth of the
assertion that the Chinese are no less human, and no
more divine, than other peoples when it comes to fighting
and acquiring. Unlike their neighbors, the Japanese,
the Chinese long ago developed a theory of the mandate
of heaven, the voice of the people, and the right to
revolt against rulers who are too weak and corrupt to
rule them. As long as a dynasty was strong and able to
hold by might what it had gained by might, it was clear
to the Chinese that that dynasty ruled by the mandate
of heaven. When a dynasty grew weak and the people
rebelled successfully, it was clear that the mandate of
heaven had been exhausted and that heaven willed the
rise of a new imperial house. Heaven made its will
known through the voice of the people. There might, of
course, be a conflict of voices, in which case the will of

THE BACKGROUND 3

heaven was made known by the virtue which lies in the
sword. Napoleon’s dictum with reference to heaven
being on the side of the heaviest battalions is not a new
thought to the Chinese.

Down to 1911 history may be said, in a sense, to
have often repeated itself. Until that date there had
never been an essential change in the form of the govern-
ment of the country — only in the personnel of the
dynasty. The overthrow of the Manchus in 1911-12
was complicated, however, by two essentially new fac-
tors: first, new ideas of government which led to the at-
tempt to establish a new form of government — a repub-
lic instead of a monarchy; and, second, what may, for
the sake of brevity, be called “imperialism,” that is, the
interference of foreign nations with China in order to
defend, and perhaps extend, their rights, privileges, and
property-holdings in the country. In other words, China
had to face at one and the same time complicated do-
mestic and foreign problems, which were affected by
new and alien ideas and institutions.

The Manchus who conquered Northern China and
founded the Ch’ing dynasty in 1644 had always, but
especially from the middle of the nineteenth century,
two factors with which to reckon: first, the truth that
they themselves were considered by large groups of the
Chinese as aliens who should be expelled at the earliest
possible opportunity; and, second, the foreign problem,
that of dealing with peoples who differed vitally from
the Chinese in culture and civilization. The Manchus
were ever on the horns of a dilemma: If they followed
Chinese thought and method, maintained an attitude of
superiority to foreigners and all things foreign, held the

4 CHINA IN REVOLUTION

foreigners at arm’s length, and procrastinated on all
occasions of settlements with the foreigners, they en-
couraged foreign aggression which in turn was bound to
expose the essential weakness of the Manchus to the
peoples they were ruling. If, on the other hand, the
Manchus were friendly to the foreigners, as some of them
at times tended to be, and if they attempted to appease
the foreigners, they alienated the Chinese and weakened
their own position as rulers of the empire. In a very
real sense they fell between two stools. Generally speak-
ing, they chose the first method, that of holding the
foreigners as far off as possible and claiming complete
superiority to everything alien, with the result that
there occurred a series of struggles — military and
diplomatic — with the Western powers, and finally with
Japan, which had in the meantime chosen another solu-
tion to practically the same problem.

As the failure of the Manchus to hold the foreigners
at bay became evident to the Chinese people, the latter
were more than ever encouraged to seek means of
expelling their alien rulers. Secret societies, and others
not so secret, were formed for the purpose of ousting
the Manchus and saving the country by restctfing the
Chinese themselves to rule. Two out of many rebellions
may be mentioned: the Taiping Rebellion, which raged
from 1850 to 1864, and the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. The
Manchus were compelled at times to lean on the for-
eigners to control the Chinese; at other times they leaned
on the Chinese to control, and attempt to expel, the
foreigners. In the case of the Taiping Rebellion the
Manchus ultimately received foreign aid; in that of
the Boxers they turned a movement which was origi-

THE BACKGROUND 5

nally larg^ely anti-Manchu into one which was anti-
foreign.

The idea of divide and rulcj of playing off one “for-
eign barbarian” against another, is an age-old one in
China. The alternative to this, domestic reform, was
never acted upon prior to the close of the Sino-J apanese
War of 1894-95, and then very ineffectively.

Before the outbreak of that war in 1894, Sun Yat-sen
drew up and presented a memorial to the throne in
which he advocated reform. This document was signed
by many of the Cantonese gentry. It accomplished
nothing at the time. At the close of the war, another
Cantonese, Kang Yu-wei, drew up another memorial
signed by more than one thousand literati or scholars of
many provinces who had taken the second degree —
Kujen, approximately equal to the Western A.M.
Kang’s memorial contained proposals of reform and
protested against the ratification of the Treaty of
Shimonoseki. This also was without immediate effect.
Various reform societies were organized only, for the
most part, to be suppressed and driven underground to
become secret societies with which China has for cen-
turies b«en honeycombed.

For many years the seeds of new thought, which were
considered to be revolutionary, have been in the process
of germination. A Chinese official some years ago re-
marked that the Chinese revolution really began with
the appearance of Robert Morrison in Canton in 1807.
Even before the first five treaty ports were opened in
1842 Christian missionaries had been scattering the
seeds of new thought among the Chinese of Canton,
Macao, and Malaysia and, surreptitiously, even in China

6 CHINA IN REVOLUTION

proper — for Christianity had never died out in China
after its proscription by the Manchu emperor Yung-
ch^ng in 1724. With the opening of the treaty ports fol-
lowing the signing of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842,
and with the inclusion of the toleration clauses in later
treaties and agreements, Christian missionaries scat-
tered over a large part of China. Their mere presence as
physical and intellectual aliens was an incitement to
new, and dangerous, thought. Their schools were gradu-
ally built up, and these became centers of modern — and,
incidentally. Western — learning.

South China was one of the last parts of the empire
to come under the control of the Manchus in the
seventeenth century. It is far from Peking, and this dis-
tance was enhanced in an age without railroads and
telegraphs. It was the part always most subject to non-
Chinese influence. This has been so from the days of the
Roman Empire. From Kwangtung had gone for cen-
turies many thousands of Chinese to Malaysia — the
Philippine Islands, Singapore, the East Indies. With the
appearance of the modern steamship they went in num-
bers to Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and North and
South America. From all these areas many returned to
the ancestral homes either to retire on their savings or
to visit for a period and dazzle their kinsmen with their
new wealth and their foreign ways of life. Whether the
returned Chinese stayed in or again left their native
land, they brought with them new ideas and ways of
conduct which were generally not pleasing to, and not
encouraged by, the local officials, either Chinese or
Manchu. For the persecution of returned Chinese the
Manchus generally received the blame, inasmuch as it

THE BACKGROUND

7

was easiet; and pleasanter to blame the alien ruler than
the shortcomings of their own people. The tendency to
hold the Manchus responsible for all of China’s weak-
nesses and to believe that the difficulties and drawbacks
of living and doing business in China would disappear
if they were overthrown was of the greatest possible aid
to Sun Yat-sen in the last years of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Finally, there was Hongkong, after 1842, as a cen-
ter of modern thought and administration at the very
door of Kwangtung. This was an ever present and im-
pregnable criticism of conditions as they were in China.
In Kwangtung had been born the leader of the Taiping
Rebellion, Hung Siu-ch’iian, and from that province
and the neighboring one of Kwangsi had swept the
rebels to the Yangtsze Valley in 1852-53.

Taking these facts into consideration, it is not sur-
prising that the two men Sun Yat-sen and Kang Yu-wei
who drew up the reform memorials in 1894-95 should
have hailed from Kwangtung.

Sun Yat-sen was born on November 12, 1866, in the
village of Tsui-heng, a point approximately halfway be-
tween Macao and Canton, in the district of Hsiang-
shan, ESvangtung province. His parents were peasants
of no education, but, according to tradition, the child
was from a tender age studious, critical of old methods,
and progressive in outlook. At the age of eleven — some
say thirteen — years he went to Hawaii, where an older
brother had been for some years, and there he received
his first impressions of foreign life and institutions. Ap-
parently he lost no time in making comparisons of life
in Hawaii with that in China, to the detriment of the
latter. He remained in the islands until 1884 when, on

8

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

account of fear that the youth was becoming,denation-
alized, his brother sent him back to China. His revolu-
tionary ideas along social, political, and religious lines,
and the carrying-out of demonstrations of certain of
them, resulted in his expulsion from Tsui-heng by the
village fathers. After studying for a year in a medical
school in Canton, Sun entered Queen’s College in Hong-
kong. Shortly afterward he embraced Christianity. The
course of the Franco-Chinese War of 1884-85, in the
light of the earlier defeats of China in the years 1839-42
and 1856-60, and his own comparisons of Chinese and
Western methods of life, confirmed him in his anti-
Manchu tendencies.

From 1887 to 1892 Sun Yat-sen studied in the College
of Medicine at Hongkong; in the latter year he became
that institution’s first graduate. In the same year he be-
came a member of the Young China party, or association
for the resurrection of China, which had been founded
in 1885. Mainly as a cover for revolutionary propagan-
dizing, in which he had been steadily engaged during his
course of study, he took up the practice of medicine in
Macao and Yangcheng. His chief aids during his ap-
prentice years as a revolutionist were Chen Shao*pai, Yu
Shao-huan, and Yang Hao-ling. The four friends and
conspirators were referred to by their critics as the “four
great pirates” or the “quadrumvirate of great bandits,”
and it was not without difficulty that they gathered
followers.’^

In 1 894 the young doctor established a branch of the

* Cf. P. M. d’Elia, “The Life of Dr. Sun Yat-sen,” North China Herald,
CLXXVII, No. 3299 (October 28, 1930), 137; also F. C. Chen, La revolution
chinoise (Paris, 1 929), p. 27.

THE BACKGROUND

9

Ko-lao-hwei, or Elder Brother Society, in Canton. This
secret, anti-Manchu society dates from at least the
middle of the seventeenth century — when the Manchus
seized the throne of China — and has played a prominent
part in domestic rebellions and antiforeign movements
on various occasions. As a member of a deputation to
a local official in Canton, Sun narrowly escaped arrest
in the same year. In the autumn of the following year,
1895, he was involved in a raid on Canton from Hong-
kong in co-operation with a revolutionary movement
from Swatow. This failed, some seventy of the partici-
pants were arrested, and several were executed. Sun
himself escaped. Unable to obtain a refuge in either
Hongkong or Macao on account of his revolutionary
activities, he went to Hawaii, the United States, and
England. On this journey he began his organization of
overseas revolutionary societies. These were anti-
Manchu and pro-republican in their aim. Upon these
overseas groups of Chinese, who came largely from
Kwangtung, Sun always relied for encouragement and
financial aid. The part played by these organizations in
the revolutionary movement can scarcely be exag-
gerated*

A year after his Canton raid Sun was kidnapped in
London, in October, 1896, and imprisoned in the Chinese
legation. With the aid of a waiter he succeeded in letting
Dr. (later Sir) James Cantlie, one of his former in-
structors in medicine, know of his plight; the latter im-
mediately applied to the British cabinet with the result
that Lord Salisbury himself intervened to bring about
the prisoner’s release. From this time Sun never ceased
his preparation for the overthrow of the Manchus and

10 CHINA IN REVOLUTION

the institution of a republic, but until 1912 j^e was in
the background, with a price upon his head.

Kang Yu-wei, born in 1858, was less radical than Sun
Yat-sen. He was given a classical Chinese education
and became a brilliant scholar. He did not, however,
limit his studies to the Chinese classics. He became es-
pecially interested in the reforms of Peter the Great in
Russia and in the contemporary reform of Japan, which
rose during his lifetime from the position of an insig-
nificant feudal state to that of a world-power.

Strictly speaking, Kang Yu-wei was an evolutionist
rather than a revolutionist. Though opposed to the em-
press dowager, Tzu-hsi, he was loyal both to the monar-
chical form of government and to the Ch’ing dynasty.
He was an advocate, however, of a limited constitutional
monarchy, or crowned republic, in which the emperor
should play a real, though not a dominating, role. He
also advocated the reform of the old mandarinate. To
check the power of the monarch Kang advocated the
development of local self-government with gradual par-
ticipation therein of the people; he also wished the
formation of a constitution. In his political philosophy
he was distinctly, and remained to the end of^iis life,
a monarchist.

The defeat of China in the war with Japan was fol-
lowed by the “Battle of Concessions”; these were the
immediate causes of a reform movement, membership in
which was not limited to Southern Chinese. There was,
for example, Chang Chih-tung, a native of the metro-
politan province of Chihli. Born in 1835, Chang rose by
way of the official literary examinations to high office.
From 1884 to 1889 he was Canton viceroy; here he was

THE BACKGROUND

II

undoubtedly influenced by the spirit of change and re-
form. In .1894 he became Nanking ¥iceroy.. The defeat
of China by the Japanese convinced him^: as it had Sun
and Kang^ of the need for reform, and on the close of
that struggle he collected and published a series of lec-
tures to his subordinates under the title Exhoriatims
to Learn,

The five objects of knowledge as outlined by Viceroy
Chang were:,

1. Know the shame of not, -being like -Japan, Turkey, Siam, and
Cuba.

2. Know the fear that we shall become as India, Annani, Burmah,
Korea, Egypt, and Poland.

3. Know that if we do not change our customs we cannot reform
our methods, and if we do not reform our methods we cannot
utilize the modern implements of war, etc.

4. Know what is important. The study of the old is not urgent; the
call for men of attainments in useful knowledge is pressing.
Foreign education is of different kinds. Western handicraft is not
in demand, but a knowledge of the methods of foreign govern-
ments is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

5. Know what is radical. When abroad, do not forget your own
native country; when you see strange customs, do not forget your
parents; and let not much wisdom and ingenuity make you forget
the holy sages.

The three things necessary to be done in order to
save China from revolution” were declared to be (i) the
maintenance of the reigning dynasty; (2) the conserving
of the holy religion — Confucianism, and (3) the protec-
tion of the Chinese race. Chang Chih-tung declared that
a republican form of government was not suited to
China.

The young emperor, Kwang-hsii, was delighted with
the viceroy’s work, composed as it was in the purest of
literary Chinese and filled with the spirit of reform. He

12

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

ordered its distribution among the goverpors and
viceroys of the empire. More than a million copies are
said to have been sold. As a reformer and encourager of
modern learning Chang must be counted among those
who unwittingly prepared the way for revolution of a
kind which he himself abhorred. A revolutionist in the
ordinarily accepted sense of the word he assuredly was
not. He was a literary aristocrat and a mandarin of the
mandarins; with assurance he held that “the fate of
China depends upon the literati alone.” How far mod-
ern China has gone from the way laid down by Chang
Chih-tung the events and the conditions of the past
decade amply demonstrate. When the hundred days of
reform of 1898 were over, and reform was no longer
fashionable, Chang scampered back to the ranks of the
conservatives, horrified at what he hoped the country
might escape, and encouraged the Empress Dowager in
her tireless pursuit of those who would muddy the
waters of China’s crystal stream of culture.

Early in June, 1898, Weng T‘ung-ho, imperial grand
tutor, brought to the attention of the Emperor, now in
his twenty-sixth year, the name of Kang Yu-wei whose
literary works had made him famous. Among these were
The Book of Great Similitudes, The Reform of Japan, and
The Reform of Russia. Since 1894 the young Emperor
had been interested in Western religion and customs;
one reason for this had been the presentation to his
aunt, the Empress Dowager, of a finely bound copy of
the New Testament by more than ten thousand Chinese
Christian women on the occasion of Tzu-hsi’s sixtieth
birthday anniversary. Kwang-hsu now became ac-
quainted with Kang Yu-wei’s works dealing with the

THE BACKGROUND

13

reforms.'Cif Peter the Great and those which had con-
tributed, to the rise of Japan. Greatly impressed^ he ap-
pointed .Eang to official position and honored him with
a personal audience on June 14, 1898. Now began the
so-called “hundred days of reform’' during which
scores of edicts w^ere issued by the Emperor at the be-
hest of the enthusiast^ Kang. Among these may be men-
tioned such outstanding ones as the following:

June 23.— Abolishing' the Wenchang essay as a p.roiiiiiient feature
in the examinations leading to official office
July 10. — Establishing schools and colleges in all d!St,nct cities and
ordering, that all. memorial and unofficial temples should be used
for the purpose

Aug. io.~-^rdering the Tientsin and Nanking viceroys to consult
and report on the establishment of a naval academy and training
ships

Aug. 30. — Abolishing many minor and sinecurist positions in Peking
and the provinces

Sept. 5. — Foreshadowing a national army, based on conscription, to
be drilled according to Western method.

Sept. 16.— Sanctioning a system of annual, published budgets.

These and other edicts struck at the roots of corrup-
tion, inefficiency, and general conservatism throughout
the empire and, of course, brought the imperial reformer
and his^philosophical adviser into conflict, direct and in-
direct, with innumerable vested interests.

Second only to Kang Yu-wei among the reformers in
Peking at this time was T'an Tzu-t'ung, another
Cantonese, a son of the governor of Hupeh, and, in
1898, one of the secretaries of the Grand Council. T’an
was a philosopher of energy and positive action; lie
differed with Kang Yu-wei in the radicalism of his
thought and his willingness to die in defense of his ideals.
He is reported by Liang Ch’i-ch’ao to have remarked:

14

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

“The weakness of China is due to the fact ^at there
have been no martyrs for the cause of freedom and
reform. Shall I not be the first martyr ?” Again he said,
“Blood must flow before things can be better.” T’an
was an anti-authoritarian opposed to the classical
thinkers of China, especially Lao-tsze. To the latter he
attributed the weakness of the Chinese people in their
negative and passive attitude toward life. An unbeliever
in non-resistance, quietism, renunciation, and absolut-
ism, he held that the ancient teachings with reference to
universal obligation between the ruler and his subjects
had been corrupted. He ardently advocated the rights
of the people, particularly that of revolution.

Unlike Kang, T’an was a revolutionist rather than an
evolutionist; like Sun Yat-sen, T’an worked for the
overthrow of the Manchus whom he considered hopelessly
corrupt. Among the papers of Kang Yu-wei later found
at his birthplace in Kwangtung was one in which T’an
was advocated as worthy to be nominated to the office of
president of the Chinese Republic. T’an was the most
distinguished radical official of the period.

Of the Cantonese reformers the most distinguished
scholar was Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, the editor of a reforming
organ in Peking calltd Chinese Progress. Liang, like
Kang, was a sincere believer in constitutional monarchy.
He was not a revolutionist; clear proof of this is to be
found in his message to Yuan Shih-kai in 1915 when the
latter was engaged in his monarchical scheme. Liang
wrote: “. . . . A change in the conduct of a government
is a sign of progress, while a change in the form of a gov-
ernment is a sign of revolution. A revolution always re-
tards the progress of a nation.” Among the edicts issued
by the Emperor during the hundred days was that of Au-

THE BACKGROUND

15

gust 16, ordering the establishment of a Government Bu-
reau of Translation. Over this Liang was appointed to
preside; standard works on political economy and natural
science were to be translated and published. He was
granted the sum of one thousand taels a month to cover
the expenses involved in his work. Liang was not so
much an original thinker as an eloquent channel for the
expression of new thought. In this period he advocated
material improvements and the reorganization of educa-
tion but said little, however much he may have thought,
concerning democracy and popular sovereignty.

Watchfully waiting in the “profound” seclusion of
her palace during the surnmer of 1898 was the old
empress dowager, Tzu-hsi, who had forced the election
of her nephew to the throne on the death of her son in
1875. "The first two or three of the reform decrees had
at least her formal approval. As the progress of the sun
chariot became more and more irregular, however, and
gave evidence of leaving the old established course en-
tirely, she began to take measures to change drivers.

The liberalism of the reformers toward the end of
August, and during the first days of September, 1898,
led to protests on the part of the conservatives in office,
and they begged the Empress Dowager to resume her
rule. Kang Yu-wei now advised the Emperor to
strengthen his position by seizing and imprisoning the
Dowager who, he was convinced, was a source of danger
to reform. Into the details of the ensuing plots and
counterplots it is not necessary to enter suffice to say

^ CL J. O. P. Bland and E. T. Backhouse, China under the Empress
Dowager, chap, xii; E. T. Williams, China Yesterday and Today (4th ed.), pp.
493-96; H. B. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire,
III, 141-46; B. L. Putnam-Weaie, The Fight for the Republic in China, pp.
26-28.

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

i6

that the plan of the reformers to imprison Tzu-hsi
failed, and the Emperor himself became a state prisoner.
Kang and Liang fled the country; T’an Tzu-t’ung re-
fused to flee and, with several other reformers, was be-
headed in the public market place of Peking. The Em-
press Dowager and her conservative followers entered
upon an antireform campaign. An offer of one hundred
thousand taels was made for the capture of Kang Yu-
wei dead or alive. His writings were ordered destroyed,
likev/ise the graves of his ancestors, and an attempt was
made to put to death all his kinsmen. The reform
decrees of the summer of 1898 were reversed; the maga-
zine Chinese Progress was suppressed, and an attempt
was made to forget, temporarily, that the condition of
the empire left anything to be desired.

Followed now, upon the failure of both reformers and
revolutionists, and as a result of the scramble for con-
cessions of the years 1897-99, the Boxer Rebellion. This
movement was originally in part directed against the
Manchus. The court was shrewd and strong enough to
turn it into an antiforeign outbreak. As a result Peking
fell into the hands of the allied armies in 1900, the court
fleeing to Sian-fu in Shensi. •

The failure of China’s rulers to kill or expel all for-
eigners encouraged the reformers and revolutionists to
renewed endeavors. Returning from Shensi to her pol-
luted palaces in the capital, the Empress Dowager at
last realized that reform only, or at least the pretense
of reform, could prevent a revolution which must over-
throw the dynasty. Accordingly, she set out on the road
earlier traveled by the young Emperor, and edicts were
published which, in several cases, were similar to those

THE BACKGROUND

1.7

issued in.jSgBy and which. had resulted in the imprison-
.ment of Kwang-hsii.

. The next decade witnessed a goFeniment-fostered at-
tempt to stem radicalism, by the projected assimilation
of the. Manchus with the Chinese, and by the gradual
bringing-in of a constitutional regime which should
introduce representative institutions and result i,n a
limited monarchy not greatly different from that advo-
cated by Kang Yu-wei, but falling far short of the aims
of either Sun Yat-sen or T'an Tzu-t*ung.

The results of two earlier educational movements —
that of the Christian missionaries and the Yung Wing
educational mission of 1872-81 — were becoming in-
creasingly evident. Chinese who had enjoyed the ad-
vantages of a modern education, either abroad or in their
homeland, and who had for long been kept in the back-
ground now began to rise to power. Government-
fostered colleges and universities along modern lines
were opened. In 1903 a ministry of education was estab-
lished. Two years later the old classical examination
system, which is to be traced back at least as far as the
T"ang dynasty, was abolished by a stroke of the ver-
milion pencil. This constituted a break with China's
intellectual past none the less violent in that it took
place by imperial decree.

In September, 1906, an imperial edict promised ad-
ministrative reform along legal, financial, naval, and
military lines. It was now declared that the nation
should be prepared for the gradual introduction of a
constitutional government. Another decree, issued on
November 6, announced the abolition of the old min-
istries and the substitution for them of thirteen new

1 8 CHINA IN REVOLUTION

ministries; also a national consultative assembly of
elected representatives was provided for. In the follow-
ing year this assembly was ordered placed on a working
basis, and provincial consultative assemblies were also
created. On Christmas Day, 1907, an imperial decree
promised an elected Parliament with powers to enact
laws and control the executive. On the following August
27 (1908) a nine years’ program of reform was outlined,
at the end of which period Parliament should be sum-
moned to function. A draft constitution was published
at the same time. The first article of this declared that
“the Ta Tsing dynasty shall rule over the Ta Tsing
Empire forever, and shall be honored through all the
ages” — an optimistic declaration indicating that the
Manchus and their advisers had been studying the
constitution of Japan.

For the second time an effort was being made to re-
form China from the top, and the second essay was to
prove no more successful than that of a decade earlier.
No attempt was made to go to the root of China’s
governmental troubles, financial and judicial, to bring
in a system of salaries for officials and require them to
relinquish to the central government the sums c!^llected
by them. The old system of perquisites remained intact,
and the imperial government continued to suffer finan-
cially. No effort was put forth to remedy judicial weak-
ness and institute a judiciary manned by trained
officials. The idea of a Parliament was entirely alien;
moreover, few Chinese were qualified for membership
in such an institution. This was to be abundantly
demonstrated within a few years. Had there been no
foreign problem, or had there been an able native ruler

THE BACKGROUND

19

with competent advisers to oversee and guide the
developments outlined, the country might have avoided
a violent revolution as had Japan. Neither of these con-
ditions held; the interests and jealousies of the powers
were intertwined with domestic problems, w’hile the
government was still controlled by the extreme con-
servatives, a majority of the high officeholders being
Manchus who were more interested in holding what
they had than in bringing about reform.

On November I4, 1908, the deposed emperor, Kwang-
hsu, ascended the dragon chariot to visit his ancestors
on high, to be followed the next day by the Empress
Dowager— who was less interested, perhaps, in over-
seeing his actions in the next life than in preventing his
return to powder without her tutelage on the earthly
plane. The throne was passed on to a three-year-old
nephew of Kwang-hsii who was given the reign-title of
Hsuan T’ung. Prince Ch’un, the father of the Emperor,
was appointed regent. Throughout the provinces the
Chinese pressed for a rapid continuation of reform, or
plotted the overthrow of the Manchus with the object
of bringing in a native dynasty, or establishing a
republic*

In October, 1909, the provincial assemblies met. In
reality they were merely debating societies, but they
preceded to demand that the convening of the promised
national Parliament should be pushed forward so that
it should meet within two years. This the imperial gov-
ernment refused in January of the following year. In Oc-
tober of that 3;'ear, 1910, the first national assembly was
convened in Peking under the presidency of an imperial
prince. After some hesitation the government issued a

20

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

decree summoning Parliament for the year 1913. The
national assembly was not satisfied and insisted on an
immediate summons for Parliament; moreover, the de-
mand was made that the Grand Council should become
responsible to Parliament. The imperial government
promised to consider the matter and, on January ii,
191 1, the assembly was prorogued.

On May 8, 1911, further changes were made in the
imperial government in a vain attempt to meet the
demands of the reformers. Three of the old higher
councils of state were abolished; in their place a cabinet
and a Privy Council were created. Prince Ch’ing, an
aged Manchu, corrupt and of mediocre ability, who had
served as president of the abolished Grand Council, was
appointed prime minister. This gave evidence that the
Manchus were unwilling to grant real reform; a change
in administrative forms, without change of personnel,
meant little to those who were seeking a relocation of
authority.

Concurrently with the weakening of the imperial
government, and with the growing demand for reform,
there developed a provincial autonomy movement in the
western and central provinces of China. This tin itself
was not so much a new development as a revivification
of an old principle. Rarely has China had anything ap-
proaching a truly centralized government. The people
and the local officials have always opposed such. This
was a fact that westerners and their governments were
exceedingly slow to appreciate in the nineteenth cen-
tury. In general, the West pictured old China as an
absolute monarchy; it held that all that was necessary
was to bring pressure to bear on the imperial govern-

THE BACKGROUND,

■ai;.

meiit, in cirder 'to get, what it. w^anted. .This', accounts
la,rgely for t.he determination of the British government
i,n 1858 .and 'i860 to obtain the right of residence at
Peking for its envoy — a right which the other powers in-
sisted upon as soon .as 'England had. won it. This in-
sistence and pressure constituted one of the manifold
factors which weakened the imperial government of the
'Manchus and encouraged t.he Chinese to seek its over-
throw. Under the pseudo-republic since 1912 the old
problem of a loose versus a centralized govern.ment has
persisted as one of the great problems which is as yet
unsolved and "which probably will so continue for many
years to come. It constituted an immediate cause for
the outbreak of the revolution of 1911.

'oj

CO

5

CHAPTER II

YUAN SHIH-KAI ns. SUN YAT-SEN— THE
FIRST PHASE

T he period 1912-16 was one which witnessed a
struggle in China between two outstanding
characters. Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shih-kai,
their followers, and the ideas which motivated them.
Sun and Yuan were intellectually antipodal. Sun was
a southerner; Yuan was a northerner. Sun was a radical
revolutionist demanding the overthrow of the Manchus
and the establishment of a republican form of govern-
ment. Yuan was moderately liberal, an exponent of the
old mandarinate of the empire, and a believer in mon-
archical institutions. Prior to 1912 Sun held no public
office. Yuan, on the contrary, rose through the civil
service to become by force of circumstance a military
leader. Though the father of the modern war lords of
China, Yuan was not, contrary to popular supposition,
a professional militarist but a civilian official, r
Yuan Shih-kai was born in an official family in the
north-central province of Honan in i860. He was, ac-
cordingly, six years older than his great antagonist. Sun.
As a protege of Li Hung-chang, Yuan was sent to Korea
in 1884 as Chinese resident. There he remained, in
Seoul, the capital, for a decade, distinguishing himself
by his boldness and energy in opposing the Japanese and
attempting to maintain the status quo of Korea as a
vassal state to China. The hatred for Yuan engendered

YUAN SHIH-KAI w. SUN YAT-SEN

23

in the minds of the Japanese during this period was to
have a profound effect upon his later career. Returning
to his homeland, Yuan was appointed, in 1895, to the
position of civil commandant of a division of five thou-
sand foreign-drilled troops of the Peiyang or northern
army. Not long after he was made provincial judge of
Chihli. His superior in command of the army was Jung
Lu, a Manchu, who was viceroy of Chihli and a close
friend and supporter of the old Empress Dowager. With
Jung Lu, Yuan participated in a ceremony by which the
two men became what the Chinese call “blood brothers,”
that is, supporters of each other to death. When the
hundred days of reform of 1 898 were drawing to a close,
and the emperor, Kwang-hsii, was planning to compass
the seizure and imprisonment of Tzu Hsi, Yuan was
called to Peking by the Emperor, who planned to place
him in command of the army and with it complete his
schemes. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the
Emperor knew nothing of the blood brotherhood of
Yuan and Jung Lu. By two decrees Y’^uan was breveted
vice-president of a ministry, appointed viceroy ad in-
terim of Chihli, and made commander of the Peiyang
army. How precise were the directions of the Emperor
to Yuan will probably never be known, and upon
them rests the technical decision as to whether Yuan
actually betrayed the Emperor. The consensus of opin-
ion has always been that he did, although, naturally.
Yuan denied this. In any case, the plot to imprison the
Empress failed and the first chapter in the revolution
was ended.

During the last period of the Empress Dowager’s rule
Yuan was in favor at court and the holder of high office.

24

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

In December, 1 899, he became acting goveniQr of Shan-
tung; in the following March he became substantive
governor of that province. Throughout the Boxer out-
break he maintained order within his jurisdiction, a fact
which strengthened his relations with the powers in later
years. On the death of Li Hung-chang in November,
1901, Yuan was at once appointed to succeed him as
viceroy of the metropolitan province of Chihli. During
the second period of reform, that is, the constitutional
movement under Manchu direction, following the Boxer
settlement. Yuan was one of the most powerful sup-
porters of gradual modernization.

Although on the death of the Empress Dowager in
mid-November, 1908, Yuan was appointed to still higher
court rank, he fell from power six weeks later, being
ordered on January 2, 1909, to resign his offices and re-
tire to his home in Honan. His fall was probably due to
the fear engendered in the Manchus by his control of
the most powerful military force in the north as much
as to the treacherous role he was supposed to have
played in 1898.

For two and a half years Yuan was in retirement.
Then, on the outbreak of the Wuchang revolution, he
was recalled by the Manchus. After some hesitation he
accepted appointment as Wuchang viceroy; shortly aft-
erward he became commander-in-chief of the imperial
forces. So much, then, for the background of Yuan Shih-
kai, the Chinese arch-opponent of Sun Yat-sen until the
summer of 1916.

The career of Sun Yat-sen, the most influential of
China’s revolutionists in modern times, may now be
traced. In no wise daunted by his narrow escape from

YUAN SHIH-KAI w. SUN YAT-SEN

^5

death in 1,896, Sun remained for about two years, 1896-
98, in Europe studying the political, social, and economic
conditions of that continent, and planning methods for
a complete revolution in his own country which should
once for all save the Chinese from their own weaknesses
and from foreign aggression. This period witnessed the
germination of the ideas of Sun which came later to be
known as the “three people’s principles.” These, it has
been said, were suggested by Lincoln’s phrase, “govern-
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Since at this time there were few or no Chinese students
in Europe among whom Sun could propagandize, he de-
cided, in 1899, to return to Japan where large numbers
of young men had gone to study at the close of the Sino-
Japanese War.

To Japan, Liang Chi’i-ch’ao had retired shortly after
his escape in 1898, while Kang Yu-wei had taken refuge
in Malaysia. In these areas Liang and Kang continued
to disseminate their theories, which were opposed to the
republican ideas of Sun. Owing to this and to the fail-
ures of both types of reformers in North and South
China, Sun found it no easy task to carry on his propa-
ganda in the period before the Boxer outbreak. He sent
his close friend, Chen Shao-pai, to establish a propa-
ganda journal in Hongkong, however, and, contempo-
raneously, another of his friends, Che Kien-jou, began
the task of uniting the secret societies in the Yangtze
Valley with those of Kwangtung, Kwangsi, and Fukien.
They were united with the Young China party, branches
of which Sun had established in Hawaii and the United
States after his flight from China in 1895. Thus the se-
cret antidynastic societies of China were brought into

26

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

touch with similar organizations among th^ Chinese
abroad. The originator of this statesman-like idea is
said to have been not Sun but his American friend,
Homer Lea. Whether this is correct or not, it was a
masterly stroke in building up a well-financed move-
ment against the Manchu government in China.

The Boxer period was seized upon by Sun to make
another attempt to start a revolution in South China, at
Waichow and Canton. To these cities he dispatched
agents and attempted himself to return to China. The
English in Hongkong and the Japanese in Formosa pre-
vented his disembarkation in their territories. His revo-
lutionary scheme failed at this time and his friend, Che
Kien-jou, who had carried out the unification of the
secret societies, was killed. Nevertheless Sun’s stock as
a patriotic revolutionist went up considerably.

Most of the years 1899-1903 were spent by Sun in
Japan. In 1904 he started on another trip around the
world, his object being to keep the revolutionary fires
burning among the Chinese in foreign lands. Arriving
in Europe in the spring of 1905, he met groups of Chinese
students in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris, preached to them
his “three people’s principles” and outlined hisrconsti-
tution of the five powers for a republic.

As early, apparently, as the autumn of 1905 the Tung
Men Hwei (union devoted to revolution) was estab-
lished in Tokyo by the union of the Young China party
and other revolutionary societies. Among the conspira-
tors of this period were Huang Shing — a Hunanese,
Hu Han-min and Wang Ching-wei — Cantonese, and
C. T. Wang — a Chekiangese. This revolutionary society
quickly spread to China where it was joined by thou-

YUAN SHIH^KAI i;j,.:SUN YAT^SEN

27

sands, of young men devoted to reform by any method
either peaceful or forcible. In Japan, a paper called Min
Pao (The People)' was founded by Hu Han-miii and
Wang Chi.iig-wei for, the purpose of spreading the doc-
trines, of Sun Yat-se.n.'

As a result of protests on the part of the Manchu im-
perial government Sun was expelled from Japan by the
government in' 1906. He went to Indo-China to work
among the Chinese in that area; again expeliedj he
passed on to Malaysia and then to the United States,
having left the direction of the movement in the Far
East to Huang Hsing and Hu Han-min.

In 1909 occurred the attempted assassination by
Wang Chiiig-wei in Peking of Prince Ch'un, the prince
regent, father of the child-emperor. Wang was arrested
and condemned to death, but on account of the pressure
of public opinion, which the Manchus feared more and
more, the sentence of death was commuted to life-im-
prisonment. On the outbreak of the revolution in 1911
Wang was released.

In 1910 a revolutionary outbreak in Canton was put
down. On learning of this revolutionary attempt Sun
returnee! from the United States to Japan where the
Japanese officials refused him permission to land; ac-
cordingly he journeyed on to Penang, off the west coast
of the Malay Peninsula. Money was needed and Sun set
about its collection. The authorities of the Dutch East
Indies, the English colonies in the East, and of Siam, in
turn, refused him permission to reside in their posses-
sions. He therefore returned to America and Europe to
propagandize and to collect funds, both of which he did
with success, despite the fact that his cause suffered nine

28 CHINA IN. RE VOLUTION

defeats:, within 'th of 'fifteen years. . TJie' , last .of

Sun’s failures before the successful outbreak at Wuchang
in October^ 191I3 occurred at Canton in April of that
year under the leadership of Huang Hsing.' In this at-
tack the Tatar general in command of Manchu troops
at Canton was assassinated^ and . the vice-regal
was burned; but the revolt failed. . In' it seventy-two
revolutionists lost their lives. Their bodies were interred
at Hoang Hoa Kang^ near Canton, and they became
famous as the ' 'seven ty-two heroes of Hoang Hoa Kang.”

Mention has been made of the growth of a provincial
autonomy movement. The immediate point at issue
was one having to do with railroad construction from
Hankow into Szechwan, and Hankow to Canton.
Stated briefly, the principle at stake was the construc-
tion and control of railroads by the provinces them-
selves versus that of construction and control by the
imperial government. The provinces were jealous of the
increased powder which would accrue to the central
government by the control of the railroads; moreover,
they feared that the floating of loans for the purpose
would result in the practical, if not theoretical, loss of
Chinese sovereignty in China proper as had, to^a great
degree, been the case in Manchuria.

The director-in-chief of railway construction was a
corrupt and unpopular official, Sheng Hsiian-hwei
(Kung-pao), who had been appointed to office in 1896.
His policy was one of centralization of governmental
control. In January, 1911, he became president of the
ministry of communications. On May 20 a contract for
large railway loans was signed by Sheng and the repre-
sentatives of a four-power group representing England,

YUAN SHIH-KAI pj. SUN YAT-SEN

29

France, G^ermany, and the United States. In the same
month an imperial edict announced the taking-over by
the central government of all privately financed railway
lines, and the construction and control henceforward of
all trunk lines by the central government. There shortly
developed a dispute over the settlement with the prov-
inces on the matter of loans and subscriptions already
made locally for the building of the proposed lines south-
ward and westward.

It will be noted that this railroad dispute between the
central and westward provinces with Peking coincided
with the outbreak of the revolutionists in Kwangtung.
Unlike the latter, it was not easily put down. Szechwan,
in particular, was wrought up over the railway problem,
and especially over differences between the central gov-
ernment and those who had subscribed locally for the
building of railroads and who demanded the return of
their moneys. On August 24 , a passive resistance move-
ment, in the form of a strike, began in Chengtu where
government students refused to attend classes. In the
following month rioting and street-fighting occurred.

The imperial government hesitated. Before its orders
could b« carried out a bomb exploded in a house in the
Russian concession in Hankow on October 9. When the
Russian police investigated, they found the place to be
headquarters for revolutionists, and plans for the sei-
zure of Wuchang during the following spring, as well as
lists of revolutionists, were uncovered. Executions fol-
lowed, and the leaders, finding their hands forced, de-
cided on immediate revolt. They forced Colonel Li
Yuan-hung, a military aid to the viceroy, to lead them,
and the revolt began on October 10. Fighting in the

3 °

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Wuhan area, in which Huang Hsing took^a leading
part, lasted for several weeks; this was accompanied by
the rising of revolutionists in various centers, noticeably
in the central and southern provinces. There was con-
siderable bloodshed in Wuhan (Hankow, Hanyang, and
Wuchang), Nanking, and Sian in Shensi, but, compara-
tively speaking, the revolution was a bloodless one.

Of the generals on the Manchu side there was but one
whose loyalty was undoubted and conspicuous. This
was Chang Hsun, who was reputed to have acted as
cart-driver for the Empress Dowager on her trip to
Sian in 1900, when she fled on the fall of Peking to the
allied forces. In Nanking, Chang Hsun demonstrated
his loyalty by taking many heads, particularly those of
students. Ultimately he was forced to retire northward
— where he lived to fight again a losing battle for the
Manchus in 1917.

At the time the revolution broke out in the Wuhan
area. Sun Yat-sen was in the United States. Although
reported to have been anxious to return at once to China
to participate in the movement, he stayed in the West
for a time, engaged in arousing the sympathies of the
United States and Europe on behalf of the revnlution-
ists. From America he went to England and France.
His absence abroad served to keep him out of the mael-
strom of conflicting groups and policies of the revolu-
tionists in China. In the meantime the mouthpiece of
the revolutionists became the well-known Wu Ting-fang,
former Chinese minister to the United States.

Early in December a truce was reached between the
Manchus and the revolutionists. In Nanking, the first
capital of the Ming dynasty, an assembly of representa-

YUAN SHIH-KAI w. SUN YAT-SEN

31

tives began to gather from the revolting provinces.
Colonel Li Yuan-hung and his colleagues in Central
China showed no ability, or desire, to dispute with the
diplomatic mouthpiece of revolution in Nanking and
Shanghai, and Wu Ting-fang had things rather much
his own way.

In Peking the imperial court was making every con-
cession in a vain attempt to save the dynasty. As his
representative. Yuan Shih-kai sent T’ang Shao-yi, an
American-educated Cantonese, to confer with Wu Ting-
fang and his henchmen. T’ang reached Shanghai on
December 17, and within a few days allowed himself to
be converted to republicanism. Whether T’ang be-
trayed Yuan, or was acting in collusion with him in
choosing this method of deserting the Manchus, is a
moot point. Yuan’s own remarks to Morrison, the dis-
tinguished correspondent in Peking of the London Times,
as well as his later actions, indicate clearly that he had
no admiration or desire for a republican form of govern-
ment in China. Said he: “The institution of a republic
could only mean the instability of a rampant democracy,
of dissension and partition, amid which all interests
would suffer and for several decades there would be no
peace in the empire.” Li Yuan-hung had already inti-
mated to Yuan his belief that the latter was working for
his own interests when he aided the Manchus. It is more
than possible that Yuan was willing that T’ang should
be converted to republicanism as a diplomatic means of
ridding China of the Manchus and of preparing the way
to the throne for himself.

In any case it was apparent that Yuan could not con-
quer Central and Southern China for the Manchus who

32 CHINA IN REVOLUTION

were practically bankrupt owing to Sun Yaf;-sen’s suc-
cessful persuasion of the British government not to lend
money to the imperial government at this time. Nor
could the revolutionists oust Yuan from the north where
he was securely intrenched. For better or for worse each
must accept the other for the time being. From Europe,
Sun reached Shanghai on December 24, 1911. Three
days later the Nanking Provisional Assembly went to
Shanghai to beg him to accept the presidency of the pro-
visional government of the united provinces of Ghina.
To this the distinguished revolutionist agreed. On the
twenty-ninth the election was held in Nanking, and on
January i, 1912, the indomitable antagonist of the
Manchus assumed office. Shortly afterward in solemn
state he appeared before the tomb of Hung Wu, the
founder of the last native dynasty — the Ming— which
had ruled China. To the spirit of the man who had
ousted the Mongols, Sun announced the expulsion of the
alien Manchus.

In his cabinet the provisional president included
Huang Hsing as minister of war, and Wu Ting-fang as
minister of justice. To heal the breach between north
and south Sun offered to resign in favor of Yufin Shih-
kai, who should remain as provisional president until a
permanent government could be formed. Although the
latter at first declined, this was the solution later agreed
upon. After six and half weeks’ tenure of office Dr. Sun
retired in favor of Yuan.

On February 12, the boy-emperor, Hsuan T’ung, ab-
dicated, generous terms of provision for the imperial
family having been submitted, and the court retired for

YUAN SHIH-KAI .SUN: YAT-SEN

33

the time being to Jehol in Tartary beyond the Great
Wall. Three days later Yuan was elected provisional
president, having been won over, in the meantime, to
vocal approval of republicanism. Thus the third phase
in the history of China’s revolution was completed.

CHAPTER HI

YUAN SHIH-KAI w. SUN YAT-SEN—

THE SECOND PHASE

I NSTEAD of healing the breach between the north
and the south, the retirement of Dr. Sun and the
election of Yuan resulted in making it wider and
clearer. Sun’s followers disagreed with Yuan, and what he
stood for, on almost every point. They desired a popular,
democratic republic in reality, based on a wide fran-
chise, and a powerful legislature which should dictate to
the executive. They wanted change overnight. They
expected Yuan to be their willing tool, and to retire as
soon as a permanent government should be formed.

Yuan needed southern revolutionary support, and in-
tended to use the revolutionists in bringing the country
under his control. He had no intention of hastily at-
tempting to bring the people into a participation in the
central government for which nothing in their back-
ground had prepared them. Moreover, he had n^ inten-
tion of accepting dictation from anyone — least of all
from a popularly elected legislature controlled by south-
erners. As events proved, he had no intention of retiring
from the executive position; on the contrary, there is
reason to believe that he planned a return to monarchy
from the beginning. Above all, he was not interested in
socialism, state or otherwise, and this Sun and most of
his followers were working for. Yuan was willing to
bring in gradual reform in line with the experience of

34

35

YUAN SHIH-KAI oj. SUN YAT-SEN

the Chinese people; he was unalterably opposed to deep-
rooted revolution and a complete break with the past.
Provincialism was much stronger than nationalism, and,
as previously stated. Yuan was a northerner with little
love for the southerners, or for the ideas of overseas
Chinese who had been so lacking in a sense of propriety
as to leave their homeland and ancestral tombs to re-
side, and to seek a living permanently, among “barba-
rians.”

The provisional president-designate took the oath of
office on March lo, 1912; the promulgation of the pro-
visional constitution, the work of the Nanking repre-
sentatives of the revolution, occurred at the same time.
This instrument of government provided for a president,
a vice-president, a National Advisory Council, and a
Bicameral Assembly. The power was centered in the
legislative, instead of the executive, branch. On April 29
the National Advisory Council met. It quickly became
evident, by the obstructionist tactics employed, that
Sun Yat-sen’s supporters were in a majority. Owing
largely to these tactics. Parliament was not convened
until April of the following year — 1913.

In th® interval the relations between Yuan and the
Kuomingtang, or National People’s party, as the revolu-
tionary party of Sun was now called, became more and
more strained. To Yuan’s aid came a group in opposition
to the Kuomingtang known first as the Kunghotang and
later as the Chinputang. This party stood for a strong
executive; to it belonged Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, Li Yuan-
hung, and — more or less uncertainly — Wu Ting-fang.

Yuan’s needs for foreign loans, and his desire to sup-
plant by his own men the revolutionary leaders of the

36

CHINA IN 'REVOL^^^

provinces^^^ together with his -evident disappmval of ne-
sponsibie party government, brought him into conflict
with the southerners,

constitution provided that, the per-
manent constitution should be drafted by a comniittee
of parliament. In opposition to this several of Yuan’s
followers memorialized him in favor of a permanent con-
stitution to be drafted by a committee appointed by
Yuan himself.

In July, 191a, Sung Chiao-jen, a leader of the Kuo-
mintang who was candidate for the office of premier,
criticized Yuan for his failure to institute party govern-
ment. In the following March Sung was assassinated in
Shanghai as he was about to board a train to go to
Peking for the opening of Parliament and the presumed
assumption of the premiership. In the preceding xAu-
gust, General Chang Cheng- wu, a friend of Sun, and a
revolutionary leader, had been arrested in Peking and
shot without a trial. Sun himself, who was now devoting
his attention to the economic development of the coun-
try, was invited to Peking where he was appointed
director-general of railroads.

When Parliament convened on April 8, 191^, a little
over a fortnight after the assassination of Sung, the re-
lations between the newly gathered parliamentarians
and the president were so strained that Yuan himself
did not appear, nor would the two houses allow his secre-
tary to read his congratulatory message, although they
formally received it. Before the two houses could settle
their own difficulties and organize for business, they
entered upon a struggle with the provisional president
over the negotiations with foreign bankers for a loan to

YUAN SHIH-KAI SUN YAT-SEN

37

the new government. They resented both the require-
ments of the foreign bankers and the inevitable strength-
ening of the president’s position in a military way.

Yuan and the foreign bankers went ahead with their
negotiations despite the protests of the parliamentarians
led largely by C. T. Wang, vice-president of the Senate.
In May a “reorganization loan” of twenty-five million
pounds sterling was floated in London, Paris, Berlin,
St. Petersburg, Brussels, and Tokyo. Yuan’s position
was greatly strengthened, and that of Parliament cor-
respondingly weakened, to the considerable discomfiture
of Sun and the southerners. In July, following attempts
of Yuan to unseat provincial revolutionary governors
and put in their places his own military leaders, the so-
called “second revolution” broke out in the Yangtze
Valley. Sun Yat-sen and Huang Hsing felt that the
provisional president must be chastised, and believed
that the country would aid them to do it. Neither the
country generally nor the foreigners gave them support
or encouragement, and the punitive expedition was a
total failure. Many of the parliamentarians fled from
Peking, while Sun and Huang, now avowed enemies of
Yuan, tftok refuge in Japan. The Kuomingtang as a
whole was not declared to be implicated; this left enough
of the parliamentarians to go ahead with the elections
which had been postponed on account of the summer
revolt.

In October, Yuan was duly elected substantive presi-
dent of China. To make certain of an election, he had
taken the precaution of guarding the entrances and exits
lest the parliamentarians leave before agreeing by ma-
jority on a candidate. General Li Yuan-hung, who had

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

38

held the Wuhan area .for Yuan during the summer re-
volt, was elected vice-president. On October 10, two
years after the Wuchang outbreak of 1911, Yuan was
formally inaugurated in Peking as president of China.

Having put down the revolt of Sun, been formally
elected as president, supplied with funds, and recognized
by the powers, Yuan was ready to proceed to the further
strengthening of his position as personal ruler of the
country. Opportunity presented itself with the final re-
ports of the parliamentary constitutional committee.
The constitution prepared by this group, during the pre-
vious four months, was calculated to clip the presidential
claws and wings. The chief executive was to preside
over a cabinet which should be entirely responsible to
Parliament. Without the consent of the premier the
president could do nothing. Such a provision might suit
a French president but never Yuan Shih-kai. Backed by
his military governors, the president prevented the rati-
fication of the new constitution by expelling from Parlia-
ment on November 4 all members of the Kuomingtang
on the charge of complicity in the events of the preced-
ing summer. Parliament now was left without a quo-
rum. In December that body was suspendedi^ on Jan-
uary 10, 19I4, it was dissolved.

As a concession to appearances Yuan had a new con-
stitution prepared by his supporters and, on May i
(1914), the “constitutional compact,” as it was called,
was promulgated. This basic law made the president
the source of power and lengthened his term of office
from five years — for which he had been elected — to ten
years, and provided for indefinite re-elections. In re-
ality, constitutional government under Yuan was a thin

YUAN SHIH-KAI vs. SUN YAT-SEN

39

veil for lifendictatorship of a ruler who depended on mili-
tary force rather than on the conflicting voices of the
people. Yuan was far more powerful than the emperor
he had unseated.

The course of the Chinese revolution in 1914 and the
following years was affected by developments outside
China as had been the case in its earlier phases. Had
this not been so it is probable that Yuan might have
been successful in his plans to enthrone himself as the
founder of a new dynasty. Within three months from
the date of the promulgation of the constitutional com-
pact the World War had begun in Europe. Japan now
had a better opportunity than hitherto to interfere in
Chinese affairs. In December, 1911, she had negotiated
with the weakening Manchus and with the Chinese
revolutionists. Evidence was not wanting of her plan to
intervene in China “for the sake of the peace of the Far
East.” On December 23, 1911, the Japanese minister
to Peking formally announced to Yuan that under no
condition would Japan recognize a Chinese republic.
Japan’s actions resulted in protests from her ally, Eng-
land, and she modified her tone for a time. When the
second r^olution broke out, in 1913, the southerners
were aided by the Japanese.

The outbreak of war in Europe was followed by an
Anglo-Japanese siege of the German-leased territory of
Kiaochow in Shantung with accompanying disregard of
China’s neutrality — which, since it took place in China,
was apparently not considered as serious a breach of
international law as was the German disregard of the
neutrality of Belgium. When the Japanese disregarded
China’s protest over the breach of her neutrality. Yuan’s

40

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

government, delimited a war' zone which' tl^e; Jap
disregarded. When, after the fall of Tsingtao and the
taking-over of Germany's interests in Shantung by ; Ja- '
pauy China announced the abolition of the war zone on
January 7^ 1915, the Japanese minister, Mr. Hioki,
seized the opportunity to present directly to President
Yuan, on January 18, a list of twenty-one demands
which he had been holding since the preceding Decem-
ber 3, awaiting a favorable opportunity to present them.
Had these been accepted by China in their entirety the
country would quickly have been transformed into a
Japanese protectorate.

Far from discouraging Yuan in his plan to make him-
self emperor, the twenty-one demands served rather as
an impetus. Shortly after the presentation of the Jap-
anese ultimatum of May, 1915, a society for the preser-
vation of peace, the Chou An Hwei, was formed. The
chief object of this organization was the setting-forth of
the desirability of the monarchical system of govern-
ment for China. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Yuan's minister of
justice, refused his support, stating his opposition to a
change in the form of government in the words earlier
quoted. So the dictator fell back on one of Mang Yu-
wei's and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's followers, a certain Yang
Tu. The latter published a pamphlet in the summer of
1915 arguing that ‘The country cannot be saved except
through the establishment of a constitutional form of
government. No constitutional form of government can
be formed except through the establishment of a mon-
archy. The constitutional form of government has a set
of fixed laws, and the monarchy has a definite head who
cannot be changed, in which matters lies the source of
national strength and wealth."

YUAN SHIH-KAI w. SUN YAT-SEN

41

Yuan’s constitutional adviser at this time was Dr.
Frank J. Goodnow, later president of Johns Hopkins
University. The latter now presented a memorandum
which declared that the ideal form of government for a
state depends rather upon the basic conditions of the
country than upon the wishes of the people. With vari-
ous qualifications and conditions this document con-
tained the statement “ . . . . The monarchical system is
better suited to China than the republican system.”
The words of so able an adviser strengthened the
monarchical movement.

Yuan professed to believe the proposed change was
“unsuitable to the circumstances of the country,” but,
acting perhaps on the theory that the right hand should
not know what the left hand does, the president-dictator
allowed the movement to gather force both in Peking
and in the provinces, in spite of the fact that many of his
friends deserted him and representatives of Japan,
Great Britain, and Russia advised delay. The monarchi-
cal machinery erected in the provinces worked smoothly
and, during the autumn of 191 5, the “elections” of Yuan
to the throne were carried out with a remarkable show
of unanimity. In fact, there was too high a degree of
harmony; it was unnatural in China. After the counting
of the ballots in December, the council of state formally
invited Yuan to “obey the true will of the people and
ascend the throne.” Like Caesar, Y’uan thrice declined
the crown. He finally capitulated, however, all the dic-
tates of custom and good taste under such circum-
stances having been carried out, and he announced his
enthronement for January l, 1916, choosing for his
reign-title the characters Hung Hsien (“glorious consti-
tutionalism”).

42

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

In the meantime, what of Dr. Sun ? As gmentioned
above, he had again taken refuge in Japan, fleeing from
Ghina in August, 1913, when it became clear that the
“second revolution” was a failure. Having previously-
suffered so many reverses, he was by no means overcome
by that of 1913. In Japan he proceeded to a reorganiza-
tion and revivification of the Kuomingtang. From that
country he sent to China numerous agents to work in
the provinces against Yuan, and encourage those of his
followers who had remained to continue undaunted in
their plans for reform and revolt.

According to Dr. Paul Reinsch, American minister in
Peking at this period, the Japanese minister warned
Yuan on the occasion of his presentation of the twenty-
one demands that there were in Japan Chinese revolu-
tionists “who have very close relation with many Jap-
anese outside of the Government, and have means and
influence.” Mr. Hioki remarked that it might not be
“possible for the Japanese government to restrain such
people from stirring up trouble in China unless the
Chinese government shall give some positive proof of
friendship,” and that the Japanese people believed that
“the president is strongly anti-Japanese.” Apparently
he did not say, in so many words, that the Japanese had
never forgotten, or forgiven, the work of Yuan in Korea,
during the last two decades of the nineteenth century
(1884-94), in opposition to the Japanese and their poli-
cies in that country. So astute a ruler as Yuan might be
trusted to be aware of this.

One of those whom the dictator feared, but hoped to
retain as a follower, was Tsao Ao, a brilliant young
follower of Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, who had received his mili-

YUAN SHIH-KAI w. SUN YAT-SEN

43

tary education in Japan. On the outbreak of the revolu-
tion of 1911, Tsao had held high office in Yunnan prov-
ince, which quickly rebelled, and he had encouraged Li
Yuan-hung in his revolt against the Manchus. He had
shortly afterward become the military governor of Yun-
nan. In the revolt of 1913 he had taken no part, but
Yuan feared him, and, in accordance with his policy of
keeping in the capital all who might be dangerous, he
had brought him to Peking early in 1914. Here Tsao
had been given high office but no real power. Although
not a follower of Sun Yat-sen, he was opposed to Yuan's
monarchy scheme.

Early in December, 1915, Tsao Ao succeeded in effect-
ing his escape from Peking; he fled to Japan, and thence
to Yunnan. Here, toward the end of the month, he rose
in opposition to Yuan. This outbreak was immediately
followed by rebellions in other provinces such as Kwei-
chow and Kwangsi. In a race with the troops of Yuan
for control of Szechwan, and to aid General Feng Kuo-
chang who was straddling the fence at Nanking, Tsao
weakened his health and not long after died — not, how-
ever, without the satisfaction of having led a revolt
which was to end in the failure of Yuan’s monarchy
scheme and the candidate’s own death.

Popular opinion was almost solidly against Yuan,
showing how little real had been the “elections” of a
few months before. The dictator found he could not
trust his own general, Feng Kuo-Chang, at Nanking.
He was warned by Japan that he must not proceed with
the monarchy, and he undoubtedly knew that Japanese
officers were aiding his enemies in the south. Accord-
ingly, he first postponed the enthronement and then, in

44

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

March, 19165 definitely abandoned his plans. ^Hoping to
save his face and his position as president, even though
he might no longer be dictator, he announced by edict:

.... Through misunderstandings the present trouble has arisen.
My sincerity has not been sufficient to move the heart of the people,
and my misunderstanding has not been able to read the signs of the
times. It is the lack of virtue on my part, and, therefore, I have no

right to blame others All preparations for the restoration of

the monarchy are stopped. Thus I hope that, by imitating the re-
pentence and remorse of the ancients, the love and grace of Heaven
will be received. We will cleanse our hearts and thoughts so that
trouble will be averted and the people will obtain peace and tran-
quillity.

Opposition to Yuan did not lessen with the abandon-
ment of the monarchy scheme. By mid-April Yunnan,
Kweichow, Kwangsi, Kwangtung, and Chekiang had
announced their independence. In the following month
Szechwan followed suit. Demands were reiterated that
Yuan should resign office. This he refused to do, al-
though he proceeded to a reorganization of a responsible
cabinet under Tuan Ch’i-jui, one of his military follow-
ers who had refused to support the monarchy scheme
and fled from Peking. Yuan retained only military con-
trol. Early in May the opponents of Yuan—Sun and
Huang Hsing had ere this returned from Japan — chose
Vice-President Li Yuan-hung as president of the south-
ern provinces which had declared independence of Yu-
an’s government. The dilemma was ended by the death
of the would-be emperor on June 6, and the fourth
phase in China’s revolution came to an end.

The first attempts at fundamental change in 1898; the
later attempts of the Manchus to bring in a constitu-
tional monarchy; the October, 1911, revolution and the
temporary rise to power of Sun; and, finally, the die-

YUAN SHIH-KAI w. SUN YAT-SEN

45

tatorship of Yuan Shih-kai have now been traced. The
significance of Yuan’s rule depends a great deal upon the
point of view of the interpreter. By many, his failure to
consummate his plans for the monarchy has been
mourned; by others, of course, he is looked upon as
nothing more than a traitor of reckless personal ambi-
tion. It would appear that no decision on this matter is
possible since the basis for such does not exist. By this is
meant that no decision can be made without knowing
what the course of Yuan’s rule would have been had be
succeeded. Had he been able to go on for a period of
years, bring peace and gradually modernize the country
under many of the old forms, which the people under-
stood, it would appear that that would have been best.
There is, however, no proof that if Yuan had been suc-
cessful in instituting the monarchy he would have mod-
ernized the country; on the contrary, the bribery, assas-
sination, and treachery which characterized his rule
might serve to indicate that his dynasty, had his family
succeeded him on the throne, would have been only a
repetition of that of the Manchus. In this case the revo-
lution would merely have been stopped for a time to
break cmt more violently than before at a later period.
One thing stands out clearly from this strong man’s rule,
and that is that the idea of the monarchy was greatly
weakened. The failure of as powerful an individual as
Yuan to restore the throne made it unlikely that any
other could succeed. Thus, one more step toward the
modernization of the country was taken under, and
despite, autocratic rule.

CHAPTER IV

THE Wx^R LORDS, 1916-28

T he death of Yuan, taken in conjunction with
the conditions which prevailed in China in
1916, let loose forces which have controlled the
country in large part to the present day. The dictator’s
disloyalty to his oath of oifiice as president of the re-
public; his attempt to make himself emperor; the wast-
ing of public funds, raised at home and abroad; the
growth of the powers and numbers of provincial military
governors, known as tuchunSy tupanSy tutuhsy and tulisy
and their satellites; the determination of Dr. Sun Yat-
sen, and his Kuomingtang followers, to rule as much of
China as possible, and to set up a real republic and
establish new social institutions — all united to render
confusion worse confounded. Mention has been made of
the determination of Yuan to substitute his own mili-
tary supporters for those of the 1911 revolution in the
provincial governorships, and of the part this played in
bringing about the '^‘^second revolution” in the summer of
1913. A number of these military followers of Yuan
were the products of the Paoting Military Academy, a
training school for officers which he had established at
Paoting-fu, in Chihli province, in connection with his
army reforms toward the close of the nineteenth cen-
tury.

The impasse between the north and south at which the
country had arrived at the time of Yuan’s death was

46

47

THE WAR LORDS, 1916-28

solved by the succession to the presidency of Li Yuan-
hung, the leader at 'Wuchang in the October revolution
of 191 1, who had been elected vice-president at the time
of Yuan’s election as president in 1913. President Li
had been chosen to head the government set up by
Yuan’s opponents on the collapse of the monarchy
scheme. He was a believer in a constitutional republic
and willingly gave another chance to the parliamen-
tarians to apply their theories. Early in August, 1916,
they were reconvened in Peking and, shortly afterward,
a cabinet was formed under the leadership of Yuan’s
premier. General Tuan Ch’i-jui. Shortly afterward Par-
liament elected as vice-president General Feng Kuo-
chang, who had held the balance of power during the
rebellion of 1915 against Yuan. The country now
entered upon a remarkably complicated interplay of
personalities and politics. There was the long-standing
question of the relation of Peking to the provinces, that
is, of provincial autonomy versus a centralized govern-
ment; there was the question of north versus south,
which had been so clearly manifested during the regime
of Yuan; there was also the interrelation of President Li,
Premie^ Tuan, and Parliament.

The new president and his premier differed almost as
radically as had Yuan and the southerners. Li had no
desire for autocracy or military dictatorship; he was a
constitutionalist and believed in consultation with Par-
liament. Tuan, on the contrary, was distinctly a mili-
tarist; backed by men of the Peiyang military party, he
considered that he, and not the president, should be the
source of power and influence, and he had little use for
the parliamentarians. Tuan was concurrently minister

48

GHINA IN REVOLUTION

of war. The occasion of the main dispute between Presi-
dent Li and Premier Tuan was the breaking of diplo-
matic relations with Germany on March 14, 1917, and
the declaration of war upon that country which followed
five months later.

Toward the end of April (1917) Premier Tuan as-
sembled in Peking a conference of military governors or
tuchuns. This was done largely to force Parliament to
declare war on Germany, which Tuan was convinced
would be for the best all around, and which would
strengthen his own position. While the tuchuns were in
Peking a mob threatened Parliament; and it shortly de-
veloped that this mob had been composed of Tuan’s
soldiers. Whereupon Tuan’s colleagues resigned, and
Parliament declared that it would take no action with
reference to war as long as Tuan remained premier.

In the meantime, Parliament had been working on a
constitution — ^work which, it will be remembered, had
been interfered with by the late President Yuan. This
document outlined the powers of a strong Parliament, a
moderately strong president, and a weak premier and
cabinet. The premier’s convention of tuchuns expressed
itself as “greatly shocked” at such a document,<and de-
clared that Parliament ought to be dismissed unless
changes were made at once. The tuchuns \&h Peking on
May 11; two days later President Li, refusing to dismiss
Parliament, dismissed his premier instead. Tuan’s tu-
chuns of the Peiyang military party now came to his aid,
and announced that the provinces under their control,
namely, Fengtien, Chihli, Shantung, Hupeh, Anhwei,
Chekiang, and Fukien, were independent of the parlia-
mentary government of Li in Peking.

49

THE WAR LORDS, 191^28

Without military power of his own to offset that of
Tuan and his supporters, Li called upon that loyal old
reactionary, Chang Hsun, who had been forced out of
Nanking in December, 1911, to come north to mediate
and save the country. Chang Hsun was located in north-
ern Kiangsu province where he had twenty thousand
troops who still treasured their queues as symbols of
loyalty to the empire. It quickly became evident that
there were drawbacks to support from Chang Hsun;
the latter at once demanded the dismissal of Parliament,
for which he had little more use than Tuan and the
Pei yang militarists. Having no recourse but to comply,
President Li dismissed Parliament by edict on June 12
(1917). The parliamentarians fled southward to Shang-
hai and Canton.

On June 15 Chang Hsun reached Peking, contem-
poraneously with the arrival of the 1898 reformer, Kang
Yu-wei. Chang Hsun now decided to save the country
by restoring to the throne the tw'elve-year-old Manchu
emperor, who still maintained his shadowy court in the
northern part of the Forbidden City. This dramatic
event occurred at four o’clock on the morning of July i.
The restoration was for less than twm weeks. From his
refuge in the Japanese legation President Li refused a
dukedom and, likewise, declined to resign the presi-
dency. Premier Tuan and his supporters were again
horribly shocked, especially at Chang Hsun’s proposed
division of the spoils, and set to work to undo Chang
Hsun’s work as king-maker. Vice-President General
Feng Kuo-chang declared he had no connection with the
movement, and all but three of the provinces declared in
favor of the maintenance of the republic.

5 o :-y y:r^ CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Gn July 1 2 fifty thousand republican troops attacked
the capital. Chang Hsun fled to the Dutch legation—
Kang Yu-wei having a few days earlier taken refuge in
that of the United States. The boy-emperor retired
again to the purple twilight of the Forbidden City, and
Premier Tuan returned from Tientsin. President Li de-
clined to continue in office and was followed on August i
by Vice-President Feng Kuo-chang as acting president
for the remainder of Yuan Shih-kai’s five-year term.
This would expire in October, 1918.

Feng Kuo-chang and Tuan Ch’i-jui belonged to rival
cliques of the Peiyang (or northern) military party
which had dominated Parliament in the later part of Li
Yuan-hung’s regime. Feng headed the Chihli faction,
while Tuan controlled the Anhui clique. The Kuomin-
tang was, of course, opposed to both groups. Feng and
Tuan got along with each other no more smoothly than
had Li Yuan-hung and Tuan. Tuan was determined
that Feng Kuo-chang should not be elected substantive
president on the expiration of the term of office which
he was filling out. Accordingly, he convened in Peking
a packed Parliament, known as the “tuchuns’ parlia-
ment.” This body, in October, 1918, elected ^o the
presidency Hsu Shih-chang, a foster-brother of Yuan
Shih-kai, who had served the latter during his presi-
dency. Hsu was an elegant mandarin of the old school
who had been the last imperial viceroy of Manchuria.
He was elderly and of no great force of character.

During the administration of Hsu Shih-chang, which
lasted until June 2, 192a, there were three outstanding
cliques in the north. These were the Anfu Club {An for
“Anhui” and Fu for “Fukien”; also An for “peace” and

THE WAR LORDS, 1916-28 51

Fu for “joy”), headed by Premier Tuan; the Fengtien
clique, headed by Chang Tso-lin; and the Chihli clique,
controlled by Tsao Kun, the tuchun of Chihli — whose
headquarters were at Paoting-fu, southwest of the
capital — and his leading general Wu Pei-fu. To main-
tain, and expand, his influence Tuan relied upon exten-
sive and numerous loans from Japan which were offered
in exchange for the strengthening of Japan’s grip on
China’s natural resources. The bartering of these
aroused the most bitter resentment and criticism on the
part of the Chinese intelligentsia, especially the students.
The latter were aroused to intense indignation by the
success of the Japanese representatives at the Peace
Congress in Paris and the provisions incorporated in the
Versailles Treaty. They organized into student unions
and became the outstanding critics of the Anfu group.
So powerful did they become — backed as they were by
prominent merchants and bankers — that, during the
summer of 1919, they were able to force the resignation
of three Anfu ofBcials who were accused of being espe-
cially Japanophile and who fled to Japan for refuge.

In the following summer, 1920, the Fengtien and the
Chihli fections united to overthrow the Anfu group.
Only a few engagements were necessary to effect the
rout of the Anfu followers of Tuan. Many of them took
refuge in the Japanese legation, while Tuan himself re-
tired from the cares of office to private life and the study
of Buddhism. The lead in the fighting, and the chief
burden of generalship, was assumed by General Wu
Pei-fu, Tsao Kun’s subordinate, but the division of the
spoils was between Tsao Kun and Chang Tso-lin, W’^u
Pei-fu being largely ignored. As a result there was no

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

52 -

love lost between Wu and Chang, and the seeds of an-
other war were sown. *

For almost two years, from the summer of 192.0 to
the spring of 1922, Peking was controlled by a Chihli-
Fengtien government in which Chang Tso-lin, the war
lord of Manchuria, held the greater share of the power.
This he wielded in his own interests rather than those of
his country. By the end of April, 1922, Chang decided
to crush Wu Pei-fu of the Chihli clique before the latter
should grow too powerful. His decision was dilatory as
events quickly demonstrated. At first successful, Chang
was soon forced to retreat to the Great Wall where it
comes down to the sea at Shan-hai-kwan.

To his aid Wu called Feng Yu-hsiang from Shensi.
The star of the latter had first shone clearly in the Anfu-
expulsion war of two years before. At the time the war
began in 1922 between Wu and Chang, Feng was in
Shensi province, of which he was at the time acting
military governor. His troops were by all odds the best
trained and disciplined in China. By forced marches
Feng went to the aid of Wu, sending half his army
directly to participate in the struggle against Chang
Tso-lin while the other half guarded Wu’s conwnunica-
tion with the Wuhan area whence came Wu’s supplies.

Chang’s expulsion from China proper, in the spring
of 1922, left Wu Pei-fu real master of North China. In
an attempt to gain the favor of Wu, the defenseless and
powerless President Hsu proceeded to deprive Chang
Tso-lin of his offices. Chang immediately declared him-
self independent of Peking, which in reality, like the
other war lords of this period, he had long been. For
President Hsu and his corrupt and effete government

THE WAR LORDS, 1916-28

53

Wu Pei-fu felt only contempt which he did not bother
to conceal. Appreciating the hopelessness of his posi-
tion, the president resigned office early in June (1922)
and retired to Tientsin— like Tuan Ch’i-jui — to pursue
studies in Buddhism.

Li Yuan-hung had for almost five years been living
in Tientsin, which proved itself a veritable haven for re-
tired, resigned, and ousted officials. He was now per-
suaded, apparently much against his will and better
judgment, to resume the burdens of the presidency in
Peking. He seized the opportunity to make clear his
condemnation of the war lords and their doings in recent
years. Wu Pei-fu hoped that the restoration of Li Yuan-
hung might bring unity to the country by winning the
support of the southern provinces. Parliament, which
Li had been forced to dissolve at the orders of Chang
Hsun in 1917, was now reconvened on August i, 1922.

Meanwhile, the war lord Tsao Kun, of Chihli, Wu Pei-
fu’s superior in rank, was harboring not very well-
concealed ambitions to occupy the presidential chair in
Peking which his friend Yuan Shih-kai had first held.
Tsao Kun had aided Yuan Shih-kai in the drilling of
modern iffoops before the fall of the Manchus and had
supported him against the southerners. In 1917 he had
worked with Tuan Ch’i-jui to prevent the successful
carrying-out of Chang Hsun’s plans for the restoration
of Manchu rule. Now he felt that as senior militarist
in the north he should be elected president of China.
Two things were necessary: to expand the power of the
Chihli militarists, and to gain the support of the par-
liamentarians who enjoyed the constitutional right of
electing the president. The military successes of Wu

54

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Pei-fu had accomplished the first while bribery on a
magnificent scale accomplished the secondf It was nec-
essary, of course, to get rid of President Li. This was ac-
complished by Tsao’s supporters bringing about strained
relations between the president and Generals Wu Pei-fu
and Feng Yu-hsiang. The troops of the latter, and the
Peking police, were permitted to stage a demonstration
as a result of which President Li fled from Peking to
Tientsin on June 13, 1923 — one year and two days after
his resumption of office.

Tsao’s followers assumed control of the capital until
the necessary completion of the bribery of Parliament
could be accomplished. Parliament during its second
attempt at rule had been no more successful than it had
been before its dismissal by Yuan Shih-kai. If anything
could serve as a justification for Yuan’s dismissal of that
august body in 1913-14, it would be the disgraceful ac-
tions of this group of men during President Li’s second
term of office. Factional strife prevented anything be-
ing done; there were scenes of wild disorder; finally, its
members sold their votes to Tsao Kun in an election on
October 5. It was generally believed that Tsao Kun
spent fifteen millions of dollars (silver) in brining about
his accession to office which he assumed on October 10,
1923. On the same date the new “president” promul-
gated another “permanent” constitution.

The expulsion of Ghang Tso-lin from China proper
in 1922 did not end the quarrel between him and Wu
Pei-fu, but international problems, including the danger
for a time, in the spring of 1923, of foreign intervention,
prevented a renewal of the war. By the summer of 1924,
however, Wu and Ghang were ready to renew their

55

THE WAR LORDS, 1916-28

struggle. Chang was master of all the revenues in
Manchuria, Vith the exception of the customs, and he
had added several thousand White Russians to his force.
Wu Pei-fu, leaving politics mainly to his patron, Tsao
Kun, had concentrated on a campaign of unification of
the country by force, and was at this time overlord, in a
military sense, of most of China proper, except Chekiang
and the three southernmost provinces — Kwangtung,
Kwangsi, and Yunnan.

The conflict between Wu and Chang, the super-
tuchuns, was opened in the last week of August, ipH?
with a war between the tuchuns of Kiangsu and Che-
kiang for possession of Shanghai which, with its arsenal
and its illicit opium revenues, was a supremely desirable
prize. The tuchun of Kiangsu, Ch’i Hsieh-yuan, was an
ally of Wu Pei-fu; the ruler of Chekiang, Lu Yung-
hsiang, was allied with Chang Tso-lin. In declaring w'ar
upon Peking, Chang Tso-lin denounced the “wicked
regime” of President Tsao Kun and Wu Pei-fu, and
referred to them as the “people’s traitors.” The Peking
coterie retorted that Chang Tso-lin was a “disturber of
the peace w'hom the government is obliged to suppress
by force.*

The seeds of disloyalty so generously sown by Yuan
Shih-kai had sprung up a hundred fold, and a fine crop of
treachery was harvested in the two war areas of 1924.
The tuchun of Chekiang was overcome by the insub-
ordination and treachery of his own underlings and
was forced to flee to Japan, whence he went northward
to join his ally, Chang Tso-lin, in Manchuria. In the
north Chang was threatening Peking overland by way
of Jehol and Shanhaikwan. By treachery, according to

56 CHINA IN REVOLUTION

general report, Fengtien troops broke through one of the
gates in the Great Wall twenty miles west of Shanhai-
kwan early in October. To stem Chang Tso-lin’s Feng-
tien invaders at Jehol, Wu Pei-fu dispatched, on Sep-
tember 23, Feng Yu-hsiang, whom he had earlier at-
tempted in vain to send to the aid of the tuchun of
Kiangsu in the southern area of warfare. There had
been doubts for some time of the loyalty of Feng to his
overlord, Wu. Before his departure for Jehol the so-
called “Christian general” had intimated to his friends
his dislike of the task set for him, and he had declined
medical supplies for his army, stating that they were
unnecessary.

On the morning of October 23 (1924) Peking received
a shock such as it had not experienced since the coup
d’etat of Chang Hsun in the summer of 1917. General
Feng Yu-hsiang had suddenly brought back his army
from Jehol, covering one hundred miles in thirty-six
hours. Seizing Peking, he declared himself in favor of
-peace. He charged the president, Tsao Kun, with brib-
ery and proceeded to imprison him in his palace; he
ordered the arrest of the parliamentarians who had lent
themselves to Tsao’s nefarious schemes by#RCcepting
bribes. The foreign minister, Mr. Wellington Koo, fled
from the capital, disguised, it was reported, in women’s
clothes.

On learning of Feng’s treachery, Wu, with a small
contingent of picked troops, hastened back to Tientsin,
expecting reinforcements from the south. He quickly
learned that his communications were to be cut by the
Shantung and Shansi luchuns and that no help could
reach him from Central China. Chang Tso-lin’s forces,

57

THE WAR LORDS, 1916-28

breaking through the Great Wall, cut Wu’s communica-
tions with’his forces in and near Shanhaikwan. With a
reward for his capture dead or alive, Wu did not flee to
a treaty port or to Japan, as most republican officials
and revolutionists have done in adversity. With a few
thousand soldiers he took refuge on his own ships and
sailed to the Yangtze, proceeding thence to Nanking
and later to Hankow, and Loyang in Honan, his old
headquarters.

On October 23 the organization of two national armies
under Feng Yu-hsiang as inspector-general was an-
nounced. These w'ere known henceforth as the Kuomin-
chun, the National People’s army. On the next day
mandates were issued ordering that fighting should cease
and dismissing Wu Pei-fu from his ofiice of commander-
in-chief of the “expeditionary force for the suppression
of the rebels.” On October 31a mandate announced the
appointment of a new cabinet. On November a Presi-
dent Tsao Kun announced his resignation from the office
which had cost him so much and brought him such
humiliation. This resignation signalized the fail of the
Chihli clique, but it did not result in Tsao’s being al-
lowed iis freedom. He remained a prisoner in Peking
until April, 1926.

The executive functions were now performed for three
weeks by a so-called “governing cabinet,” which signal-
ized its tenure of power by bringing to an end the court
of the boy-emperor, Hsiian Tung. Since 1912, except for
the few days’ restoration in 1917, the imperial Manchu
household and its immediate followers had maintained
themselves in the northern section of the Forbidden City
in accordance with the abdication agreement of that

58

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

year. On November 5, 1924, officers and soldiers of the
national army appeared at the imperial palace, demand-
ing that the Emperor should resign his title. On the
same day he was requested to agree to a revised favor-
able-treatment agreement before three o’clock in the
afternoon. This he refused to do, and withdrew to the
home of his father, Prince Ch’un. He escaped thence a
few weeks later to the Japanese legation, and from there
fled for refuge in Tientsin. The treatment accorded to
“Mr. Henry Pu-Yi,” as the former emperor was now
called, made a far from favorable impression in and out-
side the capital. The British, Japanese, and Dutch min-
isters called at the Foreign Office for assurances of the
safety of the young man.

Three reasons have been generally assigned for Feng’s
coup against the imperial household: first, the danger
of another attempt at restoration— -perhaps by Chang
Tso-lin — as long as the one-time ruler remained im-
mured in the Forbidden City; second, a bid for support
from the soviets, and from the party of Dr. Sun Yat-sen,
the Kuomingtang; third, the need for funds to be realized
from curios in the imperial palaces. The expulsion of
the Emperor was a shock to both Chinese and foreigners
generally. It was one more break with the past, the
final repudiation, apparently, of an ideal of government
held in China for some three thousand years and another
blindly taken step into an unknown future.

Having overturned Wu Pei-fu and evicted the
Manchu emperor, Feng Yu-hsiang journeyed to Tien-
tsin to confer with Chang Tso-lin and the old Anfu
leader, Tuan Ch’i-jui. Since his overthrow in 1920 the
latter had resided in Tientsin. An agreement had been

THE WAR LORDS, 1916-28

59

made between him and Chang Tso-liii that in case
Chang should be victorious, Tuan would aid in a po-
litical reconstruction. After a live-day conference of the
three leaders Feng Yu-hsiang, Tuan Chh-jiii, and Chang
Tso-lin, Marshal Tuan agreed to go to Peking as pro-
visional chief executive. At last Tuan had the position
of head of the state w^hich, to ail appearances, he had
coveted since the first administration of President Li
Yuan-hung in 1916. Tuan assumed office on November
24 (1924). His provisional cabinet contained Anfuites
for the most part, not a portfolio being assigned to the
friends- of Feng Yii-hsiang.

Although Feng had not been notably successful in
the Tientsin conference, he was, nevertheless, far from
being a spent force. On the establishment of Tuan’s gov-
ernment Feng '‘resigned” his military commands and
retired for a period to the hills a few miles from Peking,
announcing his determination to travel and study
abroad. In reality he still controlled his armies — and his
armies controlled Peking. This was shown by the pre-
cipitate flight of Marshal Chang Tso-lin from Peking in
the early hours of December 2, but a little more than a
week a^ter the establishment of Tuan’s government.

Not to be outdone in the matter of ostentatious self-
effacement, Marshal Chang now followed Feng’s prec-
edent and ‘‘resigned” his titles. Chief Executive Tuan
naturally declined to accept the resignation of two such
distinguished leaders as those who formed the horns of
his governmental dilemma. His government abolished
the old titles of Feng and Chang and gave them new ones.
Instead of tuchuns they now became tupans^ but the
rose under another name was as fragrant as before. Feng

6o

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

was now frontier defense commissioner for the north-
west; Change frontier defense commissioner for the
northeast. Feng withdrew to Kalgan, northwest of Pe-
kings from whence he could dominate the capital; Chang
continued to rule Manchuria which he had held since
19'I I

Feng and Chang were the rulers of buffer states which
were intimately connected with international politics^
especially those of soviet Russia and Japan. As early as
February, 1925^ a preliminary agreement was entered
into between Feng Yu-hsiang and Russian agents; three
months later a definite agreement was negotiated by
which arms and ammunition were transported from
Siberia across Mongolia, by way of Urga, to Kalgan. By
the spring of 1925 preparations for war were being made
by Feng and Chang. Chang moved his armies south-
ward and himself proceeded to Tientsin.

Following the war of 1924, between the military
governors of Kiangsu and Chekiang, another war lord
had risen above the horizon in East-Central China. This
was Sun Ch’uan-fang, an ally of Wu Pei-fu’s ally,
Tuchun Ch^i of Kiangsu. General Sun Ch"uan-fang was
in Fukien province, to the south of Chekiang. <ide was
expected to come to the aid of Tuchun Ch’i but he
waited instead, and, when the opportunity presented it-
self, he pushed northward to seize Chekiang for himself.
After the breaking of Wu Pei-fu in the war of the
autumn of 1924, Chang Tso-lin's Fengtien forces pressed
southward and controlled the railway line from Tientsin
to Shanghai* By the autumn of 1925, a year later, Feng
Yu-hsiang and Sun Ch*uan-fang had made an alliance
against Chang Tso 4 in. Between October 17 and No-

THE WAR LORDS, 191&-28 61

vember 16 (1925) Sun Ch’uan-fang pushed northward
with his ai'mies and drove Chang Tso-lin’s Fengtien
troops from Kiangsu and Anhui provinces into Shan-
tung. Feng hoped that in an attempt to hold his posi-
tion in the rich areas of East-Central China, from Tien-
tsin to Shanghai, Chang would advance south of Tientsin
giving Feng a chance to dash eastward to that city and
cut Chang Tso-lin’s communications with Manchuria,
the base of power and supplies. Instead of moving south
to fall into Feng’s and Sun’s trap, Chang moved his
main forces in two lines toward Tientsin and toward
Jehol, thereby causing Feng to withdraw from Peking,
and to agree at Tientsin to a truce.

Treachery, w'hich has so noticeably characterized the
military struggles of the republican era in China, was
again evidenced by the publication, on November 27
(1925), of a joint declaration of war upon Chang Tso-
lin by Feng Yu-hsiang and Kuo Sung-ling. The latter
was a trusted general of Chang’s, in command of the
latter’s choicest troops. The struggle which followed
was one in which Russia and Japan were vitally con-
cerned. Since Chang could not have maintained his
tenure-'sn Manchuria without Japanese backing, his
overturn in Manchuria would have meant the weaken-
ing of Japan’s position therein. The growth of Russian
influence in Manchuria through Feng Yu-hsiang as a
channel would have been proportionately great. The
relations between Chang Tso-lin and the Japanese had
for some months, however, been less cordial, the result
being that when Kuo Sung-ling rebelled against Chang
Tso-lin in November, Japanese sympathies were for a
time divided, and there was a period of hesitation on

62

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

their part which came near raining Chang. During the
first three weeks Kuo was successful, but at the moment
when it appeared that Chang had collapsed and Mukden
must fall to Kuo, the Tokyo government made known
its plans to reinforce the garrisons of the South Man-
churia Railway, under its control, and to maintain the
neutrality of the railway zone. This made it apparent
that ultimately Japan would aid Chang Tso-lin. A
crushing defeat was administered to Kuo on December
23, the general and his wife being captured and executed
and their bodies exhibited in Mukden on December 25.

Simultaneously with Kuo’s defeat Feng’s armies suc-
ceeded in expelling the Fengtien troops from Tientsin
and capturing that city. But the failure of Kuo to oust
Chang from Mukden, the capital of Manchuria, robbed
Feng’s victory of any real value and paved the way for
the consummation of an alliance against Feng of Wu
Pei-fu and Chang Tso-lin, the super-fuc^UKs who had
warred against each other only a year earlier. Feng Yu-
hsiang now found it advisable to retire for the nonce
from public life. Leaving his Kuomin armies to the
leadership of subordinates, he prepared to journey to
Moscow. Before this, however, difficulties had arisen of
a serious international nature.

In the campaign between the Kuominchun and the
forces of Chang Tso-lin and Wu Pei-fu, the Kuomin-
chun in control of the Taku forts, which guard the
entrance to Tientsin from the sea, fired upon Japanese
gunboats and foreign merchant vessels and prevented
their freedom of navigation in and out of Tientsin. By
the protocol of 1901, following the Boxer outbreak of
1900, China is required to maintain free access to Peking
from the sea. Accordingly, on March 16, 1926, the min-

63

THE WAR LORDS, 1916-28

isters of the protocol powers presented to the Peking
Foreign Office and to the contending leaders in the civil
war an ultimatum. This demanded the cessation of, and
preparation for, hostilities in the Tientsin-Taku Bar area
and the stoppage of interference with foreign shipping.
The provisional government of Tuan Ch’i-jui was given
until noon of March 18 to reply. Twelve hours before
the expiration of the ultimatum Peking acceded to the
terms laid down and, as far as the foreign powers were
concerned, the incident was closed.

Not so, however, as concerned Peking itself. The stu-
dents there were aroused by radical leaders, both
Chinese and Russian, to protest against the ultimatum
and its acceptance by the provisional government.
Some thousands of them demonstrated before the For-
eign Office, demanding severance of relations with the
protocol powers. They then proceeded to the residence
of the provisional chief executive, Tuan Ch’i-jui, and
also to the ministry of the navy. The violence of their
actions caused Tuan’s bodyguard to fire upon them,
killing more than thirty and wounding many more,
several of whom later succumbed.

The -Kuominchun evacuated Tientsin on March 22,
1926, and retreated to Peking and Nankow. In April
they evacuated the capital, withdrawing to the north-
west, where they strengthened themselves by importing
supplies from Siberia and arranging for reinforcements
from Mongolia in case of need. Marshal Feng Yu-
hsiang now journeyed to Moscow, where he was received
with honor and observed conditions under soviet rule for
several months.

The withdrawal of Feng’s armies from Peking was fol-
lowed by the arrival of Fengtien, Chihli, and Shantung

64

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

troops in April, 1926, Chief Executive Tuan Ch’i-jui,
now very unpopular for his severe methods in quelling
student riots, fell from power as he had in 1920, and
again took refuge in Tientsin. President Tsao Kun was
at last released and immediately resigned the presidency.

Tsao’s resignation and that of Tuan Ch’i-jui left
Peking to enjoy a “vacancy of power,” as far as the
presidential office was concerned. A Committee of Pub-
lic Safety functioned for some weeks while Marshal
Chang Tso-lin and Marshal Wu Pei-fu differed on the
type of government which should be instituted. In
order to maintain the theory of constitutional con-
tinuity, while lacking a president, the device of a
regency cabinet was hit upon. Accordingly, the powers,
through their legations in Peking, were happily enabled
to continue the fiction of maintaining recognition of the
government in Peking as the one which represented
China.

On December 2 (1926) Marshal Chang Tso-lin as-
sumed the office of commander-in-chief of the partially
reorganized northern armies, now known as the Ankuo-
chun, or “tranquillity restoration” army. A little more
than six months later — in June, 1927 — MarshaLChang
Tso-lin formally instituted a dictatorial military govern-
ment with himself as tai-yuan-shuai, or dictator. This
government he maintained as the government of China,
in the face of protests from the southerners, until June 3,
1928, when the approach of the Nationalists and their
northern allies caused him to withdraw from Peking to
Manchuria, where, as he entered Mukden a few days
later, he was murdered by a bomb placed mysteriously
in a position to wreck his train.

CHAPTER V

SUN YAT-SEN AND THE NATIONALIST
MOVEMENT

H aving traced the revolution in its military
and political phases in North China from the
death of Yuan Shih-kai, in 1916, to the death
of Chang Tso-lin, in the summer of 1928, it now becomes
necessary to survey the developments in China south of
the Yangtze during approximately the same period.
This area, too, suffered from wars between provinces and
rival tuchuns, and from bandit depredations. In the
north the thread of unity was the maintenance of a con-
servative, theoretically constitutional, government in
Peking presided over by a president, with or without
Parliament. In the south a liberal-revolutionary govern-
ment, under the ideological, and at times actual, leader-
ship of Sun Yat-sen and his revolutionary followers,
struggled to maintain itself at Canton with the perennial
hope^f being able to overcome the conservative north-
erners and establish a progressive republican govern-
ment for all China.

On the dissolution of Parliament in Peking by Presi-
dent Li Yuan-hung in June, 1917, its members betook
themselves to Canton. Thither also went Sun Yat-sen
to become generalissimo of the rebellious southern
provinces, and to continue the struggle for constitu-
tional government. The government of Sun as gen-
eralissimo lasted but a few months on account of opposi-

6j

66

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

tion to him personally and strife among themselves of
the military leaders of the southern and soiithwestern
provinces.

In January, 191 8, a directorate of seven members was
established at Canton to head a southern constitution-;
alist government. The seven directors were Sun Yat-.
sen, Wu Ting-fang, .T’ang Shao-yi, Tsen Shun-hsuan,
Lu Yung-ting, T'ang Chi-yao, and Admiral Liu Pao-yi,;
Of several of these mention has earlier. been made. The:
territory over which the directorate was supposed to
exercise control included the three southernmost prov-
inces of Kwangtung, Kwangsi, and Yunnan, the two
neighboring provinces of Kweichow and Szechwan, and
parts of Hunan, Kiangsi, and Fukien — -in a word, the
greater part of China south of the Yangtze and, in the
case of Szechwan, some north of that river.

Although China became a participant in the World
War in 1917, she remained at war with herself: the
southern government fought the northern, and various
provinces and tuchuns carried on more or less private
wars. When the time came to appoint delegates to the
Peace Congress at Paris, the governments at Canton and
Peking, after some hesitation, were able to agree the
personnel of the Chinese delegation. The fact that this
delegation did not represent a united China greatly
weakened its position. The result was bitter disappoint-
ment to the Chinese people and their friends, with conse-
quent added impetus to revolution.

At this time were organized the student unions pre-
viously mentioned. To the student movement much of
good and some of ill must be attributed during the past
twelve years. Encouraged by merchants and bankers,

THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 67

students of all ages and both sexes staged demonstra-
tions throhgh a considerable part of the country. They
addressed both peasants and townsmen; they translated,
wrote, and scattered liberal, radical, and communistic
doctrines among the people; they opened free schools for
the poor; and they organized a powerful and widespread
an ti-Japanese boycott.

In these stirring times the position of Dr. Sun and the
Kuomingtang left a great deal to be desired. In May of
1918 Sun had retired from Canton, owing to the opposi-
tion of southern militarists, especially that of Lu Yung-
ting of Kwangsi. While Sun and his supporters, Wu
Ting-fang and T’ang Shao-yi, retired to their residences
in the foreign settlements of Shanghai, the parliamen-
tarians were invited by T’ang Chi-yao to establish
themselves in Yunnan and later in Chungking. Condi-
tions changed so rapidly that before they arrived at
either meeting place they were invited back to Canton.
Attempts made in February, June, and September,
1919, to heal the breach between north and south by
the conference method failed. On neither side of the
Yangtze could unity be enforced.

Tht^failures of Dr. Sun to maintain himself in the
south, and his betrayals from time to time by those who
professed to be his followers and members of the Kuo-
mingtang, brought him into somewhat low repute. For
the rise of the student movement he and his party were
not responsible. Down to 1919 the Kuomingtang, in
spite of its name, could scarcely be considered to be a
national party; it was in the main a Cantonese party,
or, at all events, a southern party, and w'as composed
largely of students educated abroad.

68

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

The city of Shanghai became one of the headquar-
ters of the student movement, and thertf Dr. Sun
was generally to be found in the frequent intervals
when he was out of office in the south. In 1919-ao the
Kuomingtang and the student movement began to join
forces with the result that both were strengthened and
the Kuomingtang in particular took a new lease on life.
The students now studied and disseminated the ideas
and the writings of Dr. Sun among all classes of people.

To President Hsu Shih-chang’s overtures to Dr. Sun
and the southerners to aid in the unification of the
country the latter turned deaf ears. They reiterated
their claims to be the repositories of the only “constitu-
tional” power in China. The fact that the terms of
office of the parliamentarians had expired worried them
not at all. Like an imperial German or a Japanese budg-
et, they held over from year to year in the absence of
new arrangements.

Following a split in the Canton government in April,
1920, Messrs. Sun, Wu, and T’ang again took refuge in
Shanghai; they now entered into negotiations with the
northern government and, for a time, it appeared pos-
sible that north and south, Peking and Canton^might
be brought together by diplomacy, and a new' Parlia-
ment and president elected for all China. Before this
could be carried out, however. Dr. Sun’s supporters in
the south overthrew his enemies in the late autumn of
1920, and he returned thither from Shanghai.

‘ The general to whom Dr. Sun owed his return to
power in Canton in 1920-21 was Ch’en Ch’iung-ming.
This man had assisted in the revolutions of 1911 and
1913, and had served as minister of war in 1917 in the

THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 69

Canton military government. He now ousted the
Kwangsi mdlitarists from Kwangtung, making it pos-
sible for Dr. Sun to return; as a result Ch’en became
civil governor of Kwangtung and at the same time
commander-in-chief of the Kwangtung forces.

Despite his devotion to constitutionalism, Dr. Sun
accepted in 1921 an “election” as president of the
Chinese Republic by a group at Canton of the old 1913
parliamentarians. There were but 22.2 votes cast in the
election; of these 213 were for Dr. Sun. Inasmuch, how-
ever, as a legal quorum of Parliament was 580, and
three-fourths of these must have voted for the successful

presidential candidate, it is clear that Sun’s election was
doubly lacking in validity. Nevertheless, it served an
opportunistic purpose, and Dr. Sun was enabled thereby
again to raise his standard and advance the claims of the
Kuomingtang.

Unfortunately for the head of the new southern gov-
ernment, there shortly developed a break between him
and General Ch’en Ch’iung-ming. The latter disap-
proved the election of Sun as “president,” and even
more thoroughly disapproved his plans for a war
againsSi*he north. There were, in addition, fundamental
differences in the political philosophy of the two men.
Ch’en Ch’iung-ming was a strong proponent of pro-
vincial autonomy; Dr. Sun was now strongly opposed to
this, and advocated a centralized government which
should cure China of civil wars and protect the country
from foreign aggression. In the anti-northern military
move of Sun, General Ch’en failed to participate, where-
upon Sun relieved him of office and persisted in his own
plans. Ch’en withdrew to Waichow, east of Canton,

70

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

where he prepared to overthrow Dr. Sun with the aid of
Yiinnanese troops in Canton. <•

In the north, Wu Pei-fu, after expelling Chang Tso-
lin and forcing President Hsu Shih-chang to resign the
presidency in June, 1922, was working to bring about a
unification of the country by restoring Li Yuan-hung
to the presidency and calling upon the 1913 Parliament
to return to the northern capital. The provisional con-
stitution of 1912 was to be put into force again and the
tuchuns were to be abolished. All these were require-
ments for peace set forth by Dr. Sun — but the latter
would have nothing to do with Wu Pei-fu and Li Yuan-
hung. Ch’en Ch’iung-ming, who was probably in al-
liance with Wu, and was certainly in favor of his plans,
was more than ever disgusted with Sun, against whom
he rebelled in June, 1922. Sun was forced to take refuge
upon a warship; for almost two months he carried on the
struggle against General Ch’en. In the course of the
war Dr. Sun’s warships bombarded the city of Canton
without giving opportunity to the noncombatants to
withdraw. Many were killed and a considerable part of
the city was destroyed. This act did not strengthen the
moral reputation of the “president of the Chi3a«»se Re-
public” either at home or abroad. He was ultimately
forced to escape to Hongkong on a British gunboat;
thence he again took refuge in Shanghai. Ch’en
Ch’iung-ming canceled Sun’s government, and insti-
tuted an “autonomous provisional government.”

Sun next set to work to try to obtain help from vari-
ous foreign sources. Canada, England, Hongkong, the
United States, Germany, and soviet Russia were all ap-
pealed to in one way or another. From Russia only was

THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

71

he able to obtain any satisfaction. Since early 1919 ap-
peals to China and offers of assistance had been coming
in from Russia from the Russians themselves and from
Chinese in that country. An appeal sent to Canton, in
March of 1919, praised Dr. Sun for his perseverance in
marching “at the head of Chinese democracy against the
northern Chinese and foreign imperialistic governments
of oppression.” The Peking government was described
as the “puppet of foreign bankers.” The disappointment
of China at Versailles was followed by sweeping and
flattering offers from Moscow to return to China what
had been taken from her by the “former imperial Rus-
sian government.” These were followed by several
special missions. If not entirely deaf to Russia’s ap-
peals, both North and South China were extremely
watchful of her actions.

In mid-January, 1923, Mr. Abram Adolf Joffe, head
of one of the Russian missions to China, appeared in
Shanghai to confer personally with Dr. Sun. .\fter sev-
eral conferences the two issued a statement in which they
declared that while both agreed that “the Communistic
order or even the Soviet system cannot actually be intro-
duced ^*►to China, because there do not exist here the
conditions for the successful establishment of either
Communism or Sovietism,” nevertheless “most cordial
and friendly” relations existed between them.

In the meantime, the plans for co-operation between
Wu Pei-fu and Ch’en Ch’iung-ming failing to material-
ize, Dr. Sun’s forces were able to expel Ch’en from Can-
ton in January, 192.3, as Ch’en had expelled Sun in the
preceding summer. For the fourth time Dr. Sun became
the leading figure in a South China government. The

72

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

effects of his friendly intercourse with M. Joffe and the
soviets quickly became apparent. A tyrannical govern-
ment was set up which was based on a balancing of the
military forces from Yuannan, Kwangsi, and Hunan.
Public property was seized, exorbitant taxation was
introduced, and taxes were collected years in advance in
order to pay the forces on which the government was
forced to depend. Opium dens and brothels were
licensed in order to aid in financial contributions. Heavy
taxes on new buildings were imposed, merchants were
seized for ransom, and thousands of coolies were im-
pressed into military service.

In September, 1923, Comrade Michael Borodin ar-
rived from Russia to act as high adviser to the Kuo-
mingtang. From this time dated the close co-operation
of the governments of Russia and Canton which lasted
until the end of the year 1927. Soviet influence was aug-
mented by the arbitrary action of the powers — Great
Britain, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and
Portugal — in sending their warships and gunboats to
Canton in December, consequent upon the threat of Dr.
Sun to seize the customs, the surplus revenues of which,
in accordance with international agreements, were being
sent to the central government in Peking. This action
caused Dr. Sun to state publicly: “We no longer look
to the West. Our faces are turned toward Russia.”

On the advice of Borodin, and with the financial aid
of Russia — to the amount of three million rubles^ — Dr.

- Sun established the Whampoa Military Academy, for
the training of officers to lead his armies. To help in this
work some thirty Russian military experts shortly ar-

* LoBi$ Fischer^ The Smets in World Ajfmrs^ II, 640.

THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

73

rived. Others appeared later for the same, or for other,
technical work-

Another evidence of the influence of soviet Rus-
sia upon Dr. Sun and the Kuomingtang was the re-
organization of the latter which was entered upon in
1923. The model chosen was the Communist party of
Russia, the object being the tightening of the bonds of
party membership and the turning of the Kuomingtang
into a powerful machine controlled by a small group of
leaders. Re-registration of membership was required;
the result was that many of the earlier members of the
party dropped out because of disapproval of the new
trend, or in disgust at the growing autocracy of the
leader. Dr. Sun. Many disapproved also of the rap-
prochement between the Cantonese and the Russians.

At the First Party Congress held in Canton in Janu-
ary, 1924, the admission into the party of Communists,
who had been growing in numbers during the past five
years, was permitted. The condition of their entrance
into the Kuomingtang was that they should accept the
principles of the latter, not that the Kuomingtang
should accept their principles. This provision may be
compa#<»d to the mixing of milk and red ink with the
understanding that the ink shall turn white to accommo-
date the milk. The entrance of the Communists greatly
enhanced their power, although in appearance the
Kuomingtang was strengthened. From this time of re-
organization dates the extraordinary revivification of
the Kuomingtang which has lasted, in part at least, to
the present day. From the same time begins the trouble
with communism which has lasted to the present, and
which bids fair to continue indefinitely. The unhappy

74

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

alliance between the groups caused trouble as early as
the following i\ugust — within seven moi>ths of the
consummation of the union. Protests on a considerable
scale broke out in Canton against the growing power of
the Communists. As a result of strife within the Kuo-
mingtang, Sun Fo, the only son of the Kuomingtang
leader, and the mayor of Canton, withdrew from the
south with several of his followers.

The growing power of the Communists, the fear of
Russian influence, and the autocratic actions of the
government of Dr. Sun created much animosity among
the merchant classes in Canton. They proceeded to cen-
tralize the organization of their volunteer corps which
were functioning in some one hundred and forty towns
throughout the province. In the autumn of 1924 they
plotted the overthrow of Sun and the bringing in again
of General Ch’en Ch’iung-ming, who was waiting a
chance to expel his opponents a second time. “The
United Commercial Guilds of Kwangtung Province on
September 24 made public a recommendation to the
overseas Chinese to withdraw their financial support
from Dr. Sun, denouncing him at the same time in the
strongest terms. They were supported by th«rT*Com-
mittee of the Kwangtung Gentry representing 96 dis-
tricts in the province, who, meeting at Fatshan late in
September, repudiated the head of the Canton govern-
ment and called it ‘irregularly constituted, without even
the support of the sentiment and good will of the local
people.’ Finally, the Kwangtung Provincial Assembly,
on September 30, warned the League of Nations that
Sun was ‘a rebel disturbing local peace, and also dis-
turbing international good will by his misrepresenta-

THE NATIONALIST - xMOVEMENT

75

tions/ 111 all these messages^ evidence of tyrannical
ernmeiit w^s adduced/'^

Contemporaneously with the wars in East-Central
and North China between Wu Pei-fu and Chang Tso-
lin and their allies^ Dr. Sun, by means of labor bands
organized under the leadership of the left wing of the
Kuomingtaiig, proceeded to crush the merchant vol-
unteer organizations in mid-October, 1924, after inter-
cepting quantities of arms which they had imported
from Europe oii' a Norwegian ship. The destruction of a
considerable part of the. wealthiest section of Canton
took place, accompanied by looting and great loss of life.

Following the overturn of Wu Pei-fu and the estab-
lishment of Tuan Chh-jui as provisional chief executive
in Peking in November, 1924, Dr. Sun was invited to go
north to consult with Feng Yu-hsiang, Tuan Ch’i-jui,
and Chang Tso-lin on the reorganization of the govern-
ment. The Kiiomingtang itself disapproved the plans
of the northern war lords, although the plans outlined
were' similar to those which Dr. Sun himself had long
stood for— at least in theory.

Whether because of his own unpopularity in Canton
foilowii»g the suppression of the merchant volunteer
organization, his feilure to bring the Kuomingtang to his
own way of thinking with reference to the proposed con-
ference in the north, or for some other reason, Dr. Sun
now decided to withdraw from the south to go indirectly
to Peking. He went by way of Shanghai and Japan
where he delayed a considerable time. On his travels
northward he fulminated vigorously, ofte.n and at
length, on the shortcomings of the white race and the

* China Ymr B&ok (1925), p. 850. . ■

76

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

imperfections of Western civilization, especially the
policies of the “capitalistic powers.” He, denounced
extra-territoriality, the “unequal treaties,” and the
foreign concessions and settlements which had so often
given him and other defeated militarists protection.

The correct attitude to be maintained by the ad-
ministrators of the foreign-controlled areas in China
toward Chinese military and political refugees has long
been a matter of discussion. In general, the policy has
been to offer hospitality to such as long as it is not clear
that they are disturbers of the peace. The arrival of Dr.
Sun at his home in the French concession on November
17, 1924, following the bloody suppression of the mer-
chant volunteers, had been preceded by considerable dis-
cussion among foreigners in Shanghai as to whether he
ought to be allowed to continue indefinitely to use this
refuge as headquarters for revolutionary plots. This
angered the southern leader and caused him to refer
heatedly to his rights and those of foreigners in Shang-
hai. “It is to be pointed out,” said he, “to those who
attempt to oppose my presence here that Shanghai is
China’s territory, and that we, Chinese, are hosts, and
foreign residents, our guests, receiving our hospitality.
This being the case, I, as a citizen of China, have every
right to reside in my territory, whereas foreign residents
in this country, as our guests, have no authority what-
ever to oppose the presence in any part of China of their
hosts. If, therefore, foreigners should dare to oppose or
obstruct my presence in Shanghai, I, with the support
of my countrymen, am determined to take some drastic
steps to deal with them. Be it remembered that we,
Chinese people, are not to be trifled with so long as we

THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

77

dwell in our own territories. Indeed, the time has come
when all loreign Settlements in our country should be
abrogated; should the retrocession by the Powers con-
cerned of their Concessions in China be delayed any
longer, I am afraid that some unhappy incident will hap-
pen, for every Chinese patriotic citizen has come fully to
realize that China has already been infringed upon by
some of the Powers long enough — so long that she can
no longer tolerate such a state of affairs.”' The fact that
this was one of the last speeches to be made by Dr. Sun
gave it additional significance in the years which fol-
lowed.

Indicative of the same trend of thought w'as the
speech which Dr. Sun gave ten days later in Tokyo, at
the Pan-i\siatic Congress. Referring to Russia, he de-
clared: “Russia believes in benevolence and righteous-
ness, not in force and utilitarianism. She is an exponent
of justice, and does not believe in the principle that a
minority should oppress a majority. Naturally, Russia
comes to link hands with the Asiatics and breaks her
family ties with the West. The Europeans, fearing that
the Russians may succeed in carrying out these prin-
ciple heap condemnations upon her as a rebel against
the civilized world.”* The influence of his Russian ad-
visers was made manifest in such statements as these.
It was, indeed, clear that Dr. Sun’s face was now set
toward Moscow. He had entered upon his last illusion;
happily for him he passed away before it could be de-
stroyed.

^ Quoted by and from P. M.. d’Elia, Norik Ckhm Herald^ CLXXVif, No.
3300 (November 4, 1930), 174..

^ Quoted by Louis Fischer, op* riL, II, 632; courtesy of Messrs. Jonarhan
Cape & Harrison Smith (publishers), New York and London.

CHAPTER VI

THE IDEOLOGY AND PLANS OF
SL"N YAT-SEN

D r. sun reached Peking on the last day of the
j year 1924. Ill at the time he arrived, he died
on March 12 in the capital which had so long
been held by his enemies, the Manchus, and later by his
own countrymen who had opposed that for which he had
stood. Immediately there began a process of apotheosi-
zation, preparations for which had been undertaken
during the preceding weeks.

The Kuomingtang and China as a whole were in need
of a modern hero, a leader who could be translated into
an ideal and who could be made the object of a unifying
hero-worship in substitution for the imperial Son of
Heaven sacrificed by the republicans in 1912. For this
role Dr. Sun was eminently qualified by his years of self-
sacrificing preparations for the revolution, by his having
served as first provisional president of the republic, and
by his writings which were to become the charterjaf the
Nationalist movement. Many who would not follow him
in life hastened to offer Dr. Sun lip-service in death,
while those who had profited by his idealism in life
profited even more after his death. Alive, the revolu-
tionary leader had made mistakes; his egotism, as well
as his ideas, and the methods he had voluntarily or in-
voluntarily adopted, had brought forth many enemies
both within and without the fold of the Kuomingtang.
As soon, however, as the leader was dead, his faults were

78

IDEOLOGY AND PLANS OF SUN YAT-SEN 79

glossed over and forgotten, while his ideals and plans '

were studied and reverenced. ;

A document, dated March ii, 1925, the day before
Dr. Sun’s death, was shortly published as the will of the ’

late Kuomingtang leader. It reads as follows:

For forty years I have devoted myself to the cause of the people*s . ,

revolution with but one end in view, the elevation of China to a
position of freedom and equality among the nations. My experiences ^

during these forty years have firmly convinced me that to attain this
goal we must bring about a thorough awakening of our own people
and ally ourselves in a common struggle with those peoples of the
world who treat us on the basis of equality. ■. is

The work of the Revolution is not yet done. Let all our comrades
follow my “Plans for National Reconstruction/’ “Fundamentals of
National Reconstruction,” “Three Principles of the People/’ and
the “Manifesto” issued by the First National Convention of our
Party, and strive on earnestly for their consummation. Above all,
our recent declarations in favor of the convocation of a National ■ . ■: "I

Convention and the abolition of the unequal treaties should be car- . ■ |;

tied into effect with the least possible delay. , , ' i

This is my heartfelt charge to you. ;

SUaN Wen^ ' „ ’

March'll, 1925 ^ -

[Written on February 20, -1925] . - - I

Doubt has been expressed as to whether the famous :

will of Dr. Sun was actually composed by him, whether |

it was drafted by Wu Tze-hui or Wang Ching-wei and ;

merely signed by Dr. Sun, or whether the document is ;

an out-and-out forgery. Interesting and important as I

this problem is from the viewpoint of historical ac- :

curacy, the origin of the will is not at present a matter I

of great significance. There is nothing in the document |

^ Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu /, trans. Frank W. Price, p. vii. Shanghai: [

The Commercial Press. I

8o

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

which is in any way contrary to the ideas and actions of
the. leader^, and the ^ will constitutes a standard of faith
and idealism comparable potentially to the Apostles"
Creed or the Declaration of Independence. '

In schools, popular gatherings, and political meetings
the will is read immediately after the calling of the as-
sembly to order ana, the making of three bows ' to the
portrait of Dr. Sun. This is followed by a three-minute
silence as a means of expressing reverence for the leader,
and to give opportunity for self-examination and re-
consecration to the cause of the revolution and the re-
demption of the country. The business of the meeting
is then undertaken. As a means of unifying the people,
and keeping ever before them the principles of Dr. Sun
and the revolution, it is a most effective instrument, and
has exerted enormous influence during the past six years.

The first work mentioned in the will, the “Plans for
National Reconstruction,"" is in reality composed of
three books published at intervals, namely, Psychological
Reconstruction^ Material Reconstruction ^ and Social
construction. The third of these, Social Reconstructiofi^ is
mainly a work on parliamentary law worked out by Sun
as a basis for the conduct of public meetings ^ an
orderly basis. It is of no particular value, except to
indicate the belief of the writer that man is a reasonable
animal who can bring change in an orderly manner by
rationalization and philosophy. Despite its title it does
not deal with the reconstruction of society.

The ideas expressed in ■ the' other volumes on psycho-
logical and material reconstruction date back in part to
the last years of the nineteenth century and the first
part of the twentieth — the period of exile following Dr.

IDEOLOGY AND PLANS OF SUN YAT-SEN 8i

Sun’s attempt to start the revolution in Canton in 1895.
Some of these ideas he had preached to the students
who were members of the Tung Meng Hui in Japan in
1905 and the following years; some he had ineffectually
tried to apply in China following the revolution of 1911.

The Psychological Reconstruction appears to have been
w’ritten in 1919, although the Preface thereto is dated
December 30, 1918. Under the title of Memoirs oj a
Chinese Revolutionary this volume was published in Eng-
lish by a London firm. It was translated into [English
from a Russian translation from the Chinese; certain
autobiographical material was added giving an account
of Sun’s revolutionary career from his youth to the
establishment of the republic and his assumption of the
provisional presidency in February, 1912.

Several of the outstanding thoughts and plans of Dr.
Sun are to be found in this volume. They did not attract
widespread attention until after his death, owing largely
to the failure of the leader to convert his fellow^-members
of the Kuomingtang to his point of view, and to the fact
that little attempt was made to put them into practice
until after his death. Among the ideas here expressed
is tht; psychologically revolutionary one, from the
Chinese point of view, that “action is easy, and knowl-
edge difficult.”

In the Preface to the Memoirs of a Chinese Revolution-
ary are to be found Sun’s explanation of the failure of
the revolution after the overthrow of the Manchus and
the sufferings of the people which he attributes to the
wrong thought of his fellow-revolutionists. “What was
that wrong mode of thought?” he asks. “It was, in their
understanding, the idea that ‘actions are difficult, but

82

GHINA in:: REVOLUTION^

knowledge '.k easy/' This view was first ex'pressed Uy.
.Fu-Kueh, under the Emperor Wu-Ting o£ the Shan
dynastyjtw’o thousand years ago. Since that time it has
taken root so deep in the mind o:f the Chinese people that
now it is seemingly difficult to' tear out. My wffiole plan
for the reconstruction of China was paralysed by this

saying I discovered that the bold mind of ^ the

Chinese revolutionaries could not outstrip their courage.
The whole Chinese people w^as in the . same position.
Later I devoted myself to the study of , the q'uestion of
‘difficulty of action and easiness of knowledge/ I
studied this question for several years^ and finally came
to the conviction that the old tradition was false: the
exact opposite is the ease. I was happy because I had
understood the cause of China's stagnation. It is due to
the fact that the Chinese are ignorant of many things^
and not at all because they cannot act.

‘‘The fact that, even though they have knowledge,
they do not act, is due to their misconception that
knowledge is easy but action difficult. Imagine that we
can prove the opposite, and force the Chinese to act
fearlessly. Without doubt the affairs of China will move
forward considerably. The theory of Fu~Kueh my
enemy, a thousand times more powerful than the au-
thority of the Manchu dynasty. The power of the
Manchus could achieve only the killing of our bodies,
but it could not deprive us of our will The might of the
theory of Fu-Kueh not only destroyed the iron will of
my comrades, but deceived the millions of the Chinese
people/'^ Sun’s opposition to. the old way of thinking of

, Pp. 7--9. ..Quoted by courtesyof Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. (publishers).

IDEOLOGY AND PLANS OF SUN YAT-SEN S3

the Chinese people based on Fu-Kueh*s thought is the
reason for his calling this part of his ‘‘Plans for National
Reconstruction,” Psychological Reconstructmu

The widely discussed three phases through which the
Nationalist revolution must pass are discussed in the
fourth chapter of the Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary
entitled “Problems of the Revolutionary Reorganisation
of China.” So also is the outline of the five-power con-
stitution which is at present being worked out by the
Nanking national government. Says the revolutionist-
philosopher: “I distinguish three phases of development
of the revolution: the first, military government; the
second, preparatory; the third, constitutional recon-
struction.

“The first phase covers the period of destruction. . In
this period it is proposed to introduce martial law. The
revolutionary troops must finally destroy the autocracy
of the Tai-Tsing dynasty, drive out the corrupt bureau-
cracy, root out evil practices, get rid of unjust slavery,
wipe out the poison of opium, eradicate the superstition
of magic and fortune-telling, and abolish likin (internal
customs duties).

“l2%-the second phase, that of preparation, the task
will be to establish local self-government and facilitate
the consolidation of the power of the people, making the
county the unit of local self-government, subdivided
into villages and rural districts. Every county, after the
enemy has been cleared from its territory and military
operations have ceased, will have to publish a pro-
visional constitution to determine the rights and duties
of citizens, as well as the rights of the revolutionary
government. Three years later the citizens will elect

84

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

their county authority If, after the lapse of six

years, peace has been established throughout the coun-
try, all the self-governing counties will have to elect one
deputy each to constitute a great National Assembly.
The task of this i\ssembly will be to establish five
Chambers, in the spirit of the ‘Constitution of Five
Forms,’ to organize the work of government: the first
administrative, the second legislative, the third judicial,
the fourth examinatory, the fifth for control and inspec-
tion.

“After the adoption of the Constitution, the citizens
in the counties will elect by ballot a President to
organise the Administrative Chamber, and will also
elect deputies to constitute the Legislative Chamber:
the other three Chambers will be appointed by the
President, with the agreement of the Legislative Cham-
ber. All the Chambers are responsible not to the Presi-
dent but to the National Assembly After the con-

firmation of the Constitution, the election of the Presi-
dent, and the election of the Chambers, the revolution-
ary government shall hand over power to the President,
and the preparatory phase may be considered at an end
from this moment. #r

“The third phase is the period of the completion of
the Revolution. In this period it is proposed to achieve
constitutional government. In this period the self-
governing counties must begin to exercise their direct
civic rights : the citizens enjoy adult suffrage in the man-
agement of their county, the right of deciding political
questions, and also the right of dismissing Government
officials. This is the Constitutional phase, i.e., the period
in which revolutionary reconstruction is completed.

IDEOLOGY AND PLANS OF SUN YAT-SEN 85

This in general outline is the scheme of revolutionary
tactics which I recommend.”^

In the preparation of his plans for Material Recon-
struction Dr. Sun set to work immediately after the
Armistice of the World War in igiS, although, as earlier
stated, the material contained therein was the result of
years of preparation. It was written in the English lan-
guage and published in New York under the title of The
International De'celopmetU of China. The Preface is
dated at Canton, .April 25, 1921. A Chinese edition ap-
peared in October of the same year. This v'olunte out-
lined a system of communications vast in scope. As the
writer himself remarked in his Preface: “Each part of
the different programs in this International Scheme is
but a rough sketch or a general policy produced from a
layman’s thought with very limited materials at his
disposal. So alterations and changes will have to be
made after scientific investigation and detailed survey.”^
However impractical in details some of the plans here
set forth may be, in general they, or their substitutes,
are bound to be carried out in time; it will, however, take
many years to apply them as a whole.

Tlie second of the writings mentioned in Dr. Sun’s
will was The Fundamentals of National Reconstruction,
and the third was the Three Prmciples of the People
or San Min Chu I. The former bears the date of April
12, 1924, and constitutes a summarization of and sup-
plement to the second of the three principles, namely,

^ pp. 120-23,

* Sun Yat-sen, Tke International Development of Chlna^ p. xii; courtesy of
G. P. Putnam’s Sons (publishers), New York and London.

86

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

democracy. The three principles outlined by Dr. Sun
are those of the people’s nationalism, the people’s
sovereignty or democracy, and the people’s livelihood.
On these principles, concerning which he had been think-
ing for a generation. Dr. Sun lectured in Canton between
January 27 and August 24, 1924.

It is to be observed that the dates just mentioned —
the first months of 1924 — fall within the early period of
Russian domination at Canton of Dr. Sun’s South
China government. This is not, however, to suggest that
the lectures are in essence Russian in their origin. Quite
the opposite. In the main they embrace Dr. Sun’s own
conclusions based on his studies and experience of many
years. Undeniably he w'as at the time of their delivery
under Russian influence, and this influence is to be found
in certain phrases used by him especially in his discus-
sion of the first two of the three principles. It is errone-
ous, however, to consider the lectures, or the principles
embodied in them, as dictated by the Russian advisers.
What the Russians insisted upon was the preparation
and delivery by Dr. Sun of his plans and ideas which
might be used for propaganda purposes by the machinery
which the Russians were aiding him and his Chinese
followers to build up.

In the Preface to the San Min Chu /, translated by
Frank W. Price, are to be found the following state-
ments: ‘Tt now happens that the Kuomingtang is being
reorgani2ed and our comrades are beginning to engage
in a determined attack upon the minds of the people.
They are in great need of ... . material for propa-
ganda. So I have been delivering one lecture a week.
.... In these lectures I do not have the time for careful

IDEOLOGY AND PLANS OF SUN YAT-SEN 87

preparation nor the books necessary for reference/ I can
only mount- the platform and speak extemporaneously.
. . . . Although I am making additions and corrections
before sending the book to the press, yet I realize that
in clear presentation of the theme, in orderly arrange-
ment of the discussion, and in use of supporting facts
these lectures are not at all comparable to the material
which I had formerly prepared. I hope that all our com-
rades will take the book .... and make it a perfect
text for propaganda purposes.”^

As mentioned above, the three principles of the
people are the principle of the people’s nationalism, the
principle of the people’s sovereignty (democracy), and the
principle of the people’s livelihood. In the mind of Dr.
Sun the first issue — nationalism— included the struggle
for international equality, self-determination for the
weaker peoples, the cultivation of the best in old China,
and the supplementing of this with the best from modern
culture so that progress should be constant. The second
issue — sovereignty — stood for participation in the gov-
ernment by the people, and included a differentiation
between governmental power, such as election, recall,
initi^ive, and referendum, which should be in the
hands of the people, and ruling authority, that is, the
judicial, legislative, executive, civil service examination,
and censorship — in other words, the five-power govern-
ment — which should be in the hands of the duly elected
rulers. The third principle — livelihood — aimed at eco-
nomic equality of the people by the equalization of

* Dr. Sun's library, notes, and manuscripts had been destroyed in Jime,
1922, on the occasion of Ch’en Ch'iung-ming's revolt against him,

» Sm Min CM pp. xi-^ii.

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

landholdings and the prevention of land monopoly, the
limitation of private capital, and the gradual bringing-
in of state capitalism. A vague and undefined socialism,
but distinctly not Marxism, which he criticized and re-
futed in considerable detail, was the aim of Dr. Sun in
his third principle.

Two facts related to the San Min Chu I have not
received the attention they deserve: first, that a period
of more than three months elapsed betw'een the presen-
tation of the two series of six lectures each, on “The
Principle of the People’s Nationalism’’ and “The Prin-
ciple of the People’s Sovereignty,” and the last four lec-
tures on “The Principles of the People’s Livelihood”;
and, second, that during this period a book entitled The
Social Inte 7 -pretation of History, by an American scholar.
Dr. Maurice William, of New York City^, fell into Dr.
Sun’s hands which profoundly affected his philosophy of
history and revolution as presented in his analysis of the
third principle.’

The lectures on the first and the second principles
were delivered between January 27 and April 26, 1924;
those on the third principle were given betw^een August
3 and August 24. In the first two series the ideology, as
well as the criticism of the great powers, presents the
viewpoint of a follower of Marx; in the third series, how-
ever, a definite change of view is indicated. Dr. Sun
was too securely bound to the Russian chariot by this
time, and too dependent on continued support from the

^ C£ ibid.^ trans. Frank W. Price, p, 382; J. W. Jenks, Why China Re^
puiiakd Boishevim^ a lecture delivered at New York University on February
6, 1929; Maurice William, Sun Yat-sm versus Communism^ a mimeographed
pamphlet sent to the writer by Dr. William, containing proof of the relation-
ship between his work and Dr, Sun's third principle.

IDEOLOGY AND PLANS OF SUN YAT^SEN H9

Russian revoIiiticmistSj to break with them; this is evi-
dent by the tone of his speeches in Shanghai and Japan
in the last months of 1924. NevertheJess^ in point after
point he cites Alarx only to criticize the latter’s argu-
ments and conclusions, and to advocate in their stead
the theories which he had somewhat gropingly been de-
veloping for several years and which he found carefully
and precisely formulated by the' American thinker in the
volume inentioiied. In paragraph after paragraph Dr,
Sun either quoted,' almost "word for wordj or para-
phrased, the arguments which he had found in The
Social Inierpreiaiion of History. He now repudiated in
reality several of his own earlier theories, without, how^-
ever, directly calling attention to the fact, and rejected
Marx’s materialis'tic conception of history, the necessity
for the class struggle, and the theory of surplus values,
substituting therefor 'the system of thought which he
had .recently discovered in Dr. William’s work.

The third series of lectures was never completed, and
Dr. Sun died shortly over six months later, surrounded
mainly by those who were converts to revolutionary
Russian thought and sustenance. The conflict of theory
to bd^traced between parts of the earlier and the later
writings of Dr. Sun accounts in part for the split be-
tween his adherents which followed his death. What
might have happened had he completed his lectures on
the principle of livelihood, and, more particularly, had
he lived another decade, it is, of course, impossible to
opine. It is, how’^ever, an interesting matter on which to
ponder. From the viewpoint' of the Russians and the
significance of the spread of their communistic doctrines
in China, the Kuomingtaiig l.eader died not a moment

90

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

too soon; it would have been better had he passed from
the scene at the end of April, 1924. There would have
been fewer grounds for controversy among his follow-
ers. But it was not too late for men of decision to profit
by his union with the Russians during the years 1923-
24; moreover, it was possible to stress the first two of the
principles at the expense of the third, which is admitted-
ly incomplete, and continue the alliance with the soviets
without whose aid there was small hope of success for
the Kuomingtang revolutionists.

The last of the documents mentioned in Dr. Sun’s
will was the manifesto issued by the Kuomingtang First
Party Congress of January, 1924.^ This document is in
three parts of which the first summarizes the history of
the revolution; the second outlines the three principles
of the people, and calls for their dissemination among
the people; and the third outlines the domestic and for-
eign policy to be followed by the party. The domestic
policy was to follow the ideas set forth above. The for-
eign policy called for the taking of all steps for making
China the equal of any modern state by the abolition
of all limitations upon her sovereignty such as the
settlements and concessions, extraterritoriality^ the
navigation by foreign vessels of China’s coast and in-
land waters, and the landing and retention of foreign
troops on Chinese soil. It remains to consider the de-
velopment which followed the death of the leader and
the rise to power of his successor, Chiang Kai-shek,

* Cf, pmi, chap, vli, pp. 92-"93.

CHAPTER VH

THE RISE OF CHIANG OI-SHEK
AND BORODIN

D uring the period 1911-24 the Kuomingtang
may be said to have been in a state of solu-
tion. The reagent which brought precipita-
tion was soviet Russia, in the person of Comrade
Michael Borodin. Without his aid, and that of his
Russian colleagues, and the backing, material and
ideological, of Moscow, there is little to indicate that
Canton would have become anything more than it had
been for many years, namely, a center of unrest and
rebellious disaffection. Here for years there had been an
interplay of conflicting theories and personalities which
had time and again brought civil strife accompanied by
plundering, burning, and the exhaustion of one of the
richest areas in the country. Dr. Sun had for a genera-
tion been the leading exponent of revolutionary ideals
and methods of government, but of the application of
constructive measures he had shown himself all but in-
capable. This was owing in part to the fact that many
of his closest supporters had doubted the wisdom of his
plans, and had themselves been mutually jealous, sus-
picious, and personally ambitious. A degree of unity had
been attained as long as there had been the Manchus to
serve as a scapegoat for China’s mistakes. When the lat-
ter were overthrown and the problems of construction
were to be faced, what unity there had been had disap-
peared.

92

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

The middle-class characters who had been conspicu-
ous during the revolution of 1911 had no intention of at-
tacking an economic system with which all their interests
were allied. Nor were they willing to stand aside to per-
mit others to carry on a program of which they disap-
proved in essence and which they considered to be
doctrinaire and impossible of accomplishment. Some-
thing of this is made clear in a letter from General
Ch’en Ch’i-mei, one of the 1911 revolutionists, to Huang
Shing, another of Dr. Sun’s followers: “But the word
that Dr. Sun inclines towards the idealistic having taken
hold of our mind makes it difficult for his principles to
be put into effect. Even today there are people who hold
this opinion against him. But in the evidence of past
events, should we attribute the great defeat of our party
to the ideals of Dr. Sun, or rather to our misunderstand-
ing of such ideals as wrong and our opposition ? Because
formerly we thought his ideals were wrong, and this
caused our defeat, so to-day we should not lightly take
his opinions as idealistic and refuse obedience, thereby
giving ground for regret in the future.”* Even more
clearly was the principle stated by the leader himself at
the opening of the party conference on January
In the course of a long address Dr. Sun observed: “Be-
sides the two things of the reorganization of the party
and the reconstruction of the country, there is another
thing which we want to call your attention to. It is that
the reason for the lack of solidarity in our party in former
days was not because of any enemy using great power to

^Quoted by T. C. Woo, Kuomintang and the Future of the Chinese
Revolution (London, 1928), p. 34. Quoted by financial arrangement with
Messrs. George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

RISE OF CHIANG KALSHEK AND BORODIN 93

destroy ns; it was entirely due to the fact that we de-
stroyed ourselves; it was because the mind and discern-
ment were too immature, often engendering senseless
misunderstandings. Therefore the power of solidarity of
the whole party was very much scattered, and this
caused the Revolution to fail. Hereafter we must be
united and of one mind. We want to offer our own wis-
dom and ability to the party. We are not to use our own
wisdom and ability for individuals, but for the party.
All of us shall be united, for party and for country, with
one aim and with one step. It is only in this way that
we can achieve success. . . .

According to soviet reports, the program for the Kuo-
mingtang adopted by the First National Congress at this
time was outlined by Borodin himself.^ As a result of a
conversation with Sun in November, 1923, Borodin had
obtained the promise of a promulgation of two decrees,
one of which would reduce land rent by 25 per cent, and
the other would organize the peasants along revolution-
ary lines so that they would adhere to the party and be-
come anti-militarist and anti-imperialist. A committee
consisting of Wang Ching-wei, Hu Han-min, Tai Chi-
t’ao5^Liao Chung-kai, and Borodin officially prepared the
program. ''It was based,’’ says Fischer, "on three prin-
ciples accepted by Sun Yat-sen: (i) Co-operation with
Soviet Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, (2)
Anti-Imperialism, and (3) A Workers’ and Peasants’
programme, ilround this formula Borodin wrote the en-
tire declaration. Borodin thus grafted Bolshevik de-
termination on Chinese indifference, and the Soviet

p. 39.

® Cf. Louis Fischer, r/V., II, 638.

94

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

civilian method on time-honoured Chinese military-
ten dencies.”' •

Not -without opposition, as earlier indicated, was the
Russian domination of the Kuomingtang brought about.
It was not, however, until the removal of Dr. Sun from
leadership of the Kuomingtang that intra-party strife
became a matter of vital concern. The death of the lead-
er at once raised the question of succession, and gave
free scope to the struggles between party factions. The
unity of the party, for which Dr. Sun had pied in
January, 1924, was quickly broken, owing to personal
jealousies, disputes over policy, and the clever playing
of one group against another by the Russian advisers
while themselves enacting the role of mediators. Not
even in the right and left wings themselves was there
unanimity. At the extreme right were such men as Wang
Ch’ung-hui, the country’s outstanding legal authority,
and C. T. Wang, a follower of Dr. Sun prior to, and
during, the 191 1 revolution. These men still had hopes of
unifying the northern and southern elements of the
country, and, for a time, co-operated with Tuan Ch’i-jui
and Feng Yu-hsiang. More advanced in political prin-
ciples was the Western Hills faction, so called frCm a
conference held in the hills west of Peking in December,
1925. This group differed with the Canton groups
mainly in demanding the expulsion of the Communists
from the Kuomingtang and the dismissal of the Russian
advisers. For daring to take such action they were
bitterly denounced as mutineers; they failed to carry

^ Ibid.^ p. 640- Quoted by courtesy of Messrs. Jonathan Cape & Harrison
Smith.

RISE OF CHIANG KAI-SHEK AND BORODIN 95

their program into effect, and were expelled from the
party in the following year.

In Canton there were two aspirants for the seamed
mantle of Dr. Sun, namely, Hu Han-min andT’ang Chi-
yao. The former, a native of Kwangtung, had been a
friend and follower of Dr. Sun since his student days in
Japan in the early years of the century, and had been left
in charge of affairs at Canton when Sun started north-
ward in 1924. The latter, a native of Yunnan, was a
militarist on whose Yunnanese troops Dr. Sun had de-
pended in part during the period of his last administra-
tion in Kwangtung. In less than a week after Sun’s
death he assumed the title of vice-generalissimo of the
Kuomingtang armies which had earlier been offered to
him. This meant the military headship of the southern
government, and foreshadowed a struggle with the
Kwangtung troops and their leaders who resented the
presence of the Yunnanese and looked upon T’ang as
an ordinary tuchun.

Among the opponents of the Yunnan and Kwangsi
militarists were the members of the Central Executive
Committee of the Kuomingtang controlled by a group
somS;imes designated the “elder statesmen.” Among
these were Hu Han-min, Wang Ching-wei, and Liao
Chung-kai. Wang, who had been with Dr. Sun at the
last and Liao, an American-born Chinese who was in
charge of the workers’ and peasants’ section, were
extreme radicals. Hu was not an extremist, and was op-
posed to the growing influence of the Russians.

Two other groups who did not see eye to eye with the
temporarily powerful triumvirate were headed by Sun

96

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Fo, the late leader’s only son, and T. V. Soong, Dr.
Sun’s brother-in-law by his second marriage. These
groups were at times referred to as the “prince” and the
“uncle” factions, respectively.

Some six weeks after the death of Sun civil war again
broke out in Canton. For a time the Yunnan and Kwangsi
troops ofT’ang Chi-yao and his adherents were success-
ful, but in June they were driven out with great brutal-
ity and bloodshed. Strengthened by military successes,
the Central Executive Committee contemporaneously
expelled from the Kuomingtang all who were in sym-
pathy with the Western Hills faction. In the meantime,
on May 23, a resolution, worded by Wang Ching-wei,
was passed announcing the inability of the party to join
with Peking in the reorganization of the country, and
calling for co-operation only with Russia. The fires of
patriotism were fanned and the sympathies of the south-
ern nationalists with communism and soviet Russia were
strengthened by the Nanking Road (Shanghai) and the
Shakee-Shameen (Canton) incidents of May and June
(1925). In these or other brushes with foreigners a
number of lives were lost on both sides; the result was
the bringing-about of a state of tension in the relations
of China with the great powers, and the strengthening
of the influence of the extremists — Chinese and Russian
— in the Kuomingtang. On the advice of the Russians
mainly, British interests and nationals were concen-
trated upon during the next two years, although at-
tempts to weaken the position of other foreigners were
not lacking.

Early in July a Chinese soviet government was estab-
lished at Canton headed by a political council and an

RISE OF CHIANG KAI-SHEK AND BORODIN 97

administrative council. Overshadowing and directing
this government was the Central Executive Committee
of the Kuomingtang. In this reorganized Committee
Messrs. Wang Ching-wei, Hu Han-min, Liao Chung-
kai, and Sun Fo were for a few weeks the surface lead-
ers. The struggle between the more moderate bourgeois
and the radical Communist groups continued. Late in
July several of the former, including Mr. Sun Fo, were
forced to withdraw from Canton. Exerting greater in-
fluence day by day behind Wang, Hu, and Liao was
Comrade Borodin. On August 20 occurred the assassina-
tion of Liao Chung-kai, minister of finance, chief of the
workers’ and peasants’ section, and political commissar
of the Whampoa Military Academy. This was inter-
preted by Borodin as an indication that the less radical
generals such as Wei Pong-bing, who had ousted the
Yiinnanese, were planning to contest with the extremists
the control of the party. Borodin held also that the
British, who were trying to break a great strike directed
against Hongkong, were implicated, as well as Hu Han-
min who had long held reservations concerning the
Russians, and who was ambitious to head the party
whidS was now ruled by committees after the Russian
pattern. On the plea of danger to the revolution Boro-
din succeeded in obtaining the appointment of a dicta-
torial triumvirate composed of Wang Ching-wei and
Generals Chiang Kai-shek and Hsu Chung-sze. Hu
Han-min was not only not appointed to membership in
the supreme group but was arrested, and shortly after
exiled to Moscow.

Of the three nominal rulers of Canton, Chiang Kai-
shek was the least known to the public and apparently

98

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

the least significant. Hsu Chung-sze was the com-
mander-in-chief of the Kuomingtang forces*; he it was
who had defended Dr. Sun against Gh’en Ch’iung-ming
in 1923. Hsu was, of course, Chiang’s military superior,
but he was suspect by the Russians; his counsels of
peace were disregarded, and he was actually powerless.
By a coup in September (1925) maneuvered by Borodin,
Chiang Kai-shek, with the aid of the Whampoa cadets
and the ten thousand Hongkong strike pickets, became
commander-in-chief of the Kuomingtang forces. Wang
Ching-wei remained in power for the nonce, but the
actual ruler was Borodin, without whose consent neither
Wang nor Chiang could act.

As has been made abundantly clear, the stars of the
Kuomingtang had long been fighting in their courses.
Not until the summer of 1925 did it become apparent
that Chiang Kai-shek’s was one of the first magnitude,
and not for another two years was the fact to be made
evident. Chiang is a Chekiang man. Born in 1887 at
Fenghwa, southwest of Ningpo, he became, at the age
of nineteen, a student in the Tokyo Military College.
While there he became a follower of Dr. Sun and joined
the Tung Meng Hui which was later to evolve intCT the
Kuomingtang. On the outbreak of the 1911 revolution
at Wuchang he returned to China to participate in the
struggle under General Ch’en Ch’i-mei. For a time he
was one of Dr. Sun’s secretaries. The failure of the
“second revolution” in 1913, and the consolidation of
Yuan Shih-kai’s position, interrupted his military career,
and for a time he was in business in Shanghai. Later he
became chief-of-stafF to Ch’en Ch’iung-ming. During
the struggles of Ch’en with Sun, Chiang found difficulty

RISE OF CHIANG KALSHEK AND BORODIN 99

in serving two masters'; his earlier loyalty overcame his
later and^ while officially serving Ch'en, he advised Sun
to' attack the latter. 'After this Chiang again entered
into discreet obscurity; then, in August, 1923, after
Sun's and rapprochement^ he was sent by the for-

mer as confidential representative to Moscow to meet
Lenin, Trotsky, and Chicherin, to study bolshevist
strategy, ideology, and revolutionary technique, and to
seek aid of a material nature from Moscow. Returning
to China, he was appointed principal of the Russian-
inspired, recently established Whampoa Academy. The
protege first of Sun Yat-sen and later of Borodin, a man
of decision and iron nerve, Chiang, who was now reck-
oned a Communist, seized the opportunity so carefully
prepared by Borodin. So successfully did the two men
co-operate for the nonce that during the remaining
months of the year 1925 all opposition to the Commu-
nist-Kuomingtang forces in the Kwangtung area was
overcome.

Simultaneously a recrudescence of anti-Christian feel-
ing, which had been forming during the past three years
in various parts of the country, came to a head. During
the^ext two years — and to a lesser degree and on oc-
casion to the present day^ — its influence was strongly felt
wherever the Nationalists intrenched themselves. To
understand the basis of the anti-Christian movement
numerous factors, psychological, cultural, philosophical,
scientific, and personal, have to be considered. In the
first place, although since the Boxer period there had
been a notable recession of such feeling, and for some
fifteen years Christianity and its institutions had en-
joyed a very considerable degree of popularity and

lOO

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

success from the points of view of both influence and
numerical conversions, the opposition of the Gonfucian
literati, and of the ignorant masses, to foreigners and
their religion, so often manifested in the nineteenth and
earlier centuries, had never entirely passed away. The
assumption and demonstration that there could develop
outside China ideas and institutions more efficacious
than those which the Chinese had evolved were in them-
selves distasteful and offensive. The very presence of
the missionary constituted a criticism of the native
culture, and a threat to a system of life which had been
in process of evolution for several thousands of years.
Modern science and philosophy broke the monopoly
held by the literati of the old school. In an earlier day
the Christian missionary and the native convert were
disliked as innovators; in a later period they are criti-
cized not for radicalism but for conservatism. Enthu-
siastic, and often immature, exponents of the latest
theories of the West scorn not merely Christianity but
all religion, on the charge that it is a conservative and
superstitious force blocking scientific and philosophical
pursuit of truth.

The age-old factor of “face” is involved in thuTvast
sums of money poured into China for the building-up of
churches, hospitals, orphanages, schools, and colleges,
and the direction of expenditures and management of
these institutions by foreigners. The efficiency and ef-
fectiveness of these institutions as a whole in comparison
with many, but by no means all, native-managed
Chinese institutions is a standing criticism of the latter.
The dissemination through the foreign-fostered institu-

RISE OF CHIANG KAI-SHEK AND BORODIN loi

tions of alien ideas and religious teachings also render
them suspect.

There is the unfortunate fact to be reckoned with, 'in, ;
addition, that the foundations of modern Christian work
in the country were laid in treaties which were negoti-
ated, directly or indirectly, in the main as a result of
wars between China and the Western powers, ThC'^
justice or injustice of the wars, and the wisdom, or lack
of it, envisaged in the incorporation of toleration clauses
for Christianity in the nineteenth-century treaties are
debatable issues. That the relationship exists for good
reason or bad is undeniable. This has proved an excel-
lent weapon of attack in the hands of antireligious
propagandists during the past decade.

The bolshevik ideologues, who joined forces with the
southern Chinese in 1924, were not slow in availing
themselves of the opportunities offered for linking up
Christianity with imperialism. As long as Dr. Sun, a
professed Christian, was alive little was done above the
surface. Immediately after his death, however, the at-
tack was begun in a struggle over the type of funeral
which should be accorded him. His widow, herself a
Christian, insisted that a religious service should be
held; the result was the holding of a private Christian
service before the public funeral ceremonies were carried
out. With the cementing of the union of the Communist
and Kuomingtang parties, and the rise of Borodin to
practically dictatorial power in the autumn of 1925, the
way was opened for avowed Nationalist support of an
antireligious movement. As the southerners moved
northward from Kwangtung toward and through the

102

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Yangtze Valley in 1926-27, attacks upon Christian in-
stitutions and converts, with direct or indire-ct expulsion
of alien religious workers, took place on a grand scale.
The missionaries were dubbed “imperialists,” while their
native colleagues and converts were known as the
“running dogs of the imperialists.”

Although military opposition to the left clique in con-
trol of Canton had been overcome by the close of the
year 1925, the situation was full of uncertainty during
the first months of 1926. While the right wing was in
no position to overcome the left, it constituted, never-
theless, a source of danger, and no one could tell when
it might again dispute for supremacy. There was danger
to the revolution if either the communistically inspired
peasants’ and laborers’ unions or the militarists should
gain complete control. Not only had the members of the
Kuomingtang to fear the old-style tuchuns; they had
also to beware of the rising power of their own milita-
rists. The civilian elements in the party were determined
to revert to the system of civilian control of the armies
which had prevailed in old China and which had been
broken under the republic. Between these three stools
the Kuomingtang-Communist revolution was to "fiA in
less than two years, carrying with it the Chinese soviet
republic of 1925-27.

The Hongkong strike was continuing during these
months, and Hongkong was suffering severely, but it
was becoming clear that Canton by itself was not a
broad enough base for a successful attack on the British
Empire of which Hongkong was but a small, if sig-
nificant, part. In North-Central China, Wu Pei-fu,
against whom Dr. Sun had long thundered, was still a

RISE OF CHIANG KAI-SHEK AND BORODIN 103

power to be considered, and he was pushing southward.
Moreover, his forces and territories lay between those
of Feng Yu-hsiang and Canton — and, since the late
autumn of 1924 at least, Feng had been toying with
thoughts and agents of Moscow and Canton, and receiv-
ing aid from the former.

In addition to these general aspects of the situation
there were those of a personal nature: the relations and
the position of Wang Ching-wei, Chiang Kai-shek, and
Borodin left something to be desired. Incidents- shortly
to follow showed that the two Chinese were not tempera-
mentally fitted to play the roles of Damon and Phintias,
while the influence of Borodin was more than a little
irksome to Chiang, who had no intention of serving in-
definitely as a string to Borodin’s bow. The degrees of
Chiang’s communism, patriotism, and opportunism
were more than a little unclear. Quite aside from his
relations with the Chinese were Borodin’s connections
with the soviet leaders in Moscow, who themselves were
not at one. Almost from the beginning Borodin had
found himself in difficulties with respect to his superiors
at home. That he was the representative of a Com-
mumst-revolutionary government instead of an “im-
perialist” state did not prevent his finding that the
aims and instructions of a government thousands of
miles away from China do not always coincide with the
factors with which a foreign diplomat has to deal. He
was not the first to discover this, or yet the last.
Trotsky and his followers wanted sovietization, and
they wanted it at once. Stalin and his group were
willing, to make haste slowly. The third international
had its own policy, which might, or might not, fit in

104

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

with the foreign policy of the group in control of the
Moscow government at a given moment. Borodin
faced conditions which did not, he felt, warrant the im-
mediate application of Communist theories : a national-
ist, anti-imperialistic revolution was sufficient for the
time being. He is reported to have remarked, “We
could have seized power in Canton, but we could not
have held it. We would have gone down in a sea of
blood. We would have tried it if we had had a 25 per
cent chance of existing for one year.”^ Events in Canton
in December, 1927, demonstrated the accuracy of
Borodin’s diagnosis. Stalin, not Trotsky, sensed the true
state of affairs in China at this time.

The influence of Russia was strengthened in January,
1926, by the convening of the Second Biennial Kuo-
mingtang Congress at Canton. The need for effective
relations with Moscow was again affirmed. Wang Ching-
wei, who, a few weeks earlier, had publicly denied that
he was a Communist, but had advocated the continued
co-operation of Communists and Nationalists in the
struggle against imperialism, was elected chairman of
the Central Executive Committee. Of the thirty-six
members of the new executive, however, less thaif^ne-
third were sincere supporters of the Borodin regime.
Wang was elected also to membership in the Political
Bureau, which was composed, in addition, of Hu Han-
min, now exiled to Russia; T’an P’ing-shan, a prominent
Communist who had aided in the formation of the
peasants’ and workers’ unions; T’an Yen-k’ai, a scholar-
militarist who had participated in the 1911 revolution

^ Fischer, op, cit.^ p. 647. Quoted by permission of Messrs, Jonathan
Cape & Harrison Smith (publishers), New York and London.

RISE OF CHIANG KAI-SHEK AND BORODIN 105

and later opposed Yuan Shih-kai’s imperial ambitions;
C. C.Wu,a son of Wu Ting-fang and who was later to be-'
come minister to Washington; Sun Fo;;T. V. Soong^
Mme Sun's brother who had become minister of finance
on the death of Liao Chung-kai; Chu P'ei-teh, a Yiin-
nanese follower of Dr. Sun who had retained con troL of
his forces when the non-Cantonese forces had been
expelled or butchered; and Chiang Kai-shek. It will bev
observed that the groups officially controlling the gov-
ernment were composed of men of divergent opinions.

The relations between Chiang and Borodin were noW'
unsatisfactory. On neither the goal nor the method of
attaining it could they agree, although both advocated
entrance upon the northern campaign which Dr. Sun
had always hoped, but never been able, to undertake.
Chiang wanted to strengthen his own position, and
Borodin desired a broader base for the revolution.

To line up Feng Yu-h$iang with the southerners,
Borodin left Canton for the north in February (1926). ;
Supported by C. C. Wu, T'an P'ing-shan and Chu P'ei-:
teh, Chiang seized the opportunity, between the ■ fif-
teenth and twentieth of the following month, to carry
out^coup having for its double object the breaking of
the Communist grip on- the party and the releasing of
himself from the civilian supervision of Wang Ching-wei,
the ■ lynch-pin in the Communist- Kuomingtang soviet
republic. Wang fled to Europe; a number of the Russian
and Chinese radicals were, arrested, several of the former
being deported, and negotiations were undertaken with
Hongkong looking toward the ending of the strike.

But Chiang was not yet prepared for a final break
with Borodin. Gladly would he have eliminated the

io6 CHINA IN REVOLUTION

soviet goose, but the golden eggs were indispensable to
his success. Nor were Borodin and the extreme left Kuo-
mingtang and Communists in a position to oust Chiang
and his troops with their middle-class sympathizers.
Accordingly, the annulment of the marriage of con-
venience between the Communist party and the Kuo-
mingtang was postponed a few months longer, and, on
April 25, in order to show that he was not a right-wing
reactionary, Chiang executed a second coup, this time
against the right. Several of those who had advocated
the stroke against the left wing now received similar
treatment. Mr. C. C. Wu was forced to retire to Shang-
hai, while Sun Fo, to avoid a trip to Moscow, was forced
to accept the relatively uninfluential post of mayor of
Canton in which he was carefully supervised. The rela-
tions between Chiang and Borodin, while strained, were
not broken, and Borodin continued to aid in the prepara-
tion for the northern campaign. Each hoped to derive
sufficient strength from this move to expel the other.

In the meantime the breach was healed, to an uncer-
tain extent, by the convening of the Central Executive
Committee in Canton in mid-May (1926). Shortly be-
fore this Hu Han-min had returned from MosccjW to
Canton with Borodin, who had finished his conference
with Feng in North China and returned by way of
Vladivostok. The roundabout route followed by Boro-
din had been necessitated by the unsolicited attentions
of Chang Tso-lin’s agents. In Moscow, Hu had dis-
cussed Chinese affairs with the leaders of bolshevism and
had obtained from them assurances that there were no
objections to Communists becoming members of the
Kuomingtang and supporting, temporarily, the San Min

RISE OF CHIANG KALSHEK AND BORODIN 107

principles of Dr. Sun. They assumed the attitude earlier
maintained* by M. JofFe that China was unready for
communism, and agreed to support the Nationalist revo-
lution. Far from having been converted to commu-
nism- — to the ■ theories of which he paid a certain amount
of lip-service in order to placate the radicals — Hu con-
tinued to support the aims of Dr. Sun for a Nationalist
state. In spite of these maneuvers he was not able to re-
main long in the south. As a result of the plenary session
of the Central Executive Committee, Mr. Eugene Ch'en
succeeded him as acting minister of foreign affairs, and
Hu withdrew to Shanghai.

Born in Trinidad, and accordingly a British subject,
Mr. Ch'en had received a legal education in England and
had arrived in China in 1912; two years later he re-
nounced his British nationality. For a time he had
served Yuan Shih-kai, but, after difficulties with Tuan
Ch’i-jui, he had joined Dr. Sun. As a newspaper editor
he had developed an anti-British attitude and demon-
strated a devastating power of vituperation which pre-
eminently fitted him for the duties which he assumed
during the next sixteen months.

Tne chairman of the Central Executive Committee
was now Mr. Chang Chin-chiang, a co-provinciai of
General Chiang with whom the latter had once been in
business in Shanghai. The new chairman had long been
a devoted friend to Dr. Sun and had given him financial
assistance to the extent of his private fortune. To him
was submitted, in accordance with a resolution of the
Central Executive Committee, a list of Communists
who had joined the Kuomingtang, but no use of this list
appears ever to have been made.

CHAPTER VIII
WUHAN w. NANKING

S TRIFE within the party being no longer immi-
nent, preparations were undertaken for the
northern campaign. This was to be of a twofold
nature— military and propagandistic, with the emphasis
upon the latter. Chiang Kai-shek was officially com-
mander-in-chief, but the plan of campaign was Russian.
Some fifteen soviet military officers under the direction
of General Blucher (Galens), the chief military adviser of
the government, accompanied the expeditionary forces,
who ultimately numbered about one hundred thousand.
Of these, two corps of some twenty thousand were
under Chiang. They constituted the actual Kuoming-
tang army which had been trained at, or by officers from,
the Whampoa Military Academy. The remainder were
former supporters of the tuchuns of the southern prov-
inces. In each of the ten corps one or more Russians
held strategic positions for military or propaganda pur-
poses. At the head of the Political Bureau, whiclf^re-
pared and disseminated propaganda, was the Commu-
nist Teng Yen-ta— despite the fact that a resolution had
been passed by the Central Executive Committee dis-
qualifying Communists from the position of departmen-
tal chairman in the government. Teng had succeeded
Wang Ching-wei as political supervisor of Whampoa,
and had been attacked by Chiang in his coup of March
25, 1926.

Having brought Kwangtung under his control.

WUHAN 5J. NANKING

109

Chiang next gained Kwangsi. In Hunan to the north,
meanwhile^ General T’ang Sheng-chih had revolted
against his superior, Governor Chao Heng-t’i, who was
an adherent of Wu Pei-fu. By June (1926) Chiang was
able to send troops to the aid of T’ang who, on July 13,
took Changsha, the provincial capital. A few days
earlier the main forces of the Nationalists had been
officially dispatched on the northern expedition. These
were preceded and accompanied by plain-clothes
propagandists who preached to peasants and townsmen
the principles of Dr. Sun and Lenin; scattered vast
quantities of placards, pamphlets, and handbills; organ-
ized the people, willing and unwilling, into peasants’ and
workers’ unions; and set up soviet local governments.
With the official ending of the Hongkong strike on
October 10 (1926), thousands of pickets were transferred
to Hankow to wage economic war upon Chinese and
foreign bourgeois-capitalist interests.

Part of the southern troops passed directly north
through Hunan to the Yangtze; others carried the
campaign into Kiangsi and Fukien, two of Sun Ch’uan-
fang’s five provinces. On September 6 Hanyang was
ti'Saxrherously surrendered to the southerners by its gen-
eral, and Wu Pei-fu retreated northward. Two days
later Hankow fell. Wuchang underwent a siege by
Chang Fa-k’uei and his Ironsides until October ii.
Heavy fighting took place in Kiangsi, but General
Chiang established himself at Nanchang, the capital,
early in 'November. Late in the month he pressed
toward Hangchow, the capital of Chekiang, Ms native
province, but not until January, 1927, did a serious in-
vasion of this province occur. On February 18 Hang-

no

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

chow fellj and a few weeks later the collapse of Sun
Ch’uan-fang, brought about by Nationalist propaganda
and treachery in his ranks, threw the control of the rich
Shanghai area into Chiang’s hands. By the end of
March the only provinces in China proper which were
definitely opposed to the Nationalists were Shantung
and Chihli, where Chang Tso-lin was still in control.

Before this, however, the inevitable break between
Chiang and Borodin, and their respective followers, had
taken place with results which were immediately disas-
trous to both groups. The aims and objectives of the two
leaders were diametrically opposed. Borodin planned to
base on peasant and labor unions a radical government
in Central China which should maintain close relations
with Moscow from which he was receiving direct
orders. Chiang, as he proceeded farther from Canton,
realized the need for support from the capitalist, mer-
chant-banker class whose base of power was Shanghai.
Consequent upon the Nationalist successes of the sum-
mer and autumn of 1926, an extraordinary session of
the Kuomingtang congress was convened at Canton at
Borodin’s behest. At this it was decided to make Han-
kow the Nationalist capital, and to recall Wang CKng-
wei from his exile in Paris. Shortly afterward, Borodin
and the left-wing leaders started for Wuhan to put into
effect the resolutions of the congress. Among those con-
stituting the nucleus of administration were Mme Sun,
Sun Fo, T. V. Soong, Teng Yen-ta, T’ang Sheng-chih,
and Eugene Ch’en. On December 1 1 (1926) a mass meet-
ing, estimated by the Chinese press at three hundred
thousand, was held to welcome Borodin and his col-
leagues. Five hours of oratory followed during which

WUHAN vs. NANKING

III

many antiforeign, and particularly anti-British, speech-
es were delivered. The following weeks were marked by
anti-British and anti-Christian demonstrations on a con-
siderable scale, including the taking over of control of
the British concession at Hankow.

At his headquarters in Nanchang, the capital of
Kiangsi, Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist generalissi-
mo, was becoming alarmed and disgusted by the
radical, communistic trend of Wuhan. On January 3,
the day on which the first attack on the British con-
cession occurred, he telegraphed a request that the
Central Executive Committee of the Kuomingtang
should convene in Nanchang where Chang Chin-chiang,
chairman of the Central Executive Committee, T’an
Yen-k’ai, head of the political bureau, and several other
members of these two executive sections of the Kuo-
mingtang were present. In Hankow, Chiang would
stand no chance against Borodin, supported by the
peasant and labor unions; in Nanchang, Borodin would
have equally little chance to oppose Chiang. Naturally
the Wuhan group refused to accept Chiang’s invitation.
Thereupon Chiang went personally to Hankow to at-
tdf?q>t persuasion. In this he failed, and withdrew pre-
cipitately to his stronghold. Whereupon Wuhan insti-
tuted a strong anti-Chiang movement. Chiang now
called upon the Central Executive Committee to meet
in Nanchang, in March, without the chaperonage of the
Russians. Instead, on March 10, the left-wing members
of the Committee assembled in Hankow, under the
tutelage of the Russians. The center and right in gen-
eral absented themselves. Practically speaking, the
Wuhan junto was now Communist. Chiang was de-

II!2.

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

moted froiii of commander-in-chief and chair-

man of the Standing Committee of the Central Execu-
tive Committee, the former post being superseded by a
military commission, as announced by mandate of
April 7 following. In the reorganized Standing Com-
mittee of the Executive Committee, Chiang was re-
tained as a member, but Chang Chin-chiang, his friend,
who had been acting for him as chairman, was dropped
from membership. The new chairman was to be Wang
Ching-wei, who was expected shortly to arrive. If
Wuhan could have had its way at this time, T'ang
Sheng-chih would have supplanted Chiang Kai-sliek in
the military leadership of the party; the latter was now
merely the commander of the first nationalist army. For
the nonce Borodin, the Communists, and the extreme
left Kuomingtang were victorious. But Chiang, while
almost out, was not down.

In an attempt to discredit Chiang and the right Kuo-
mingtang generally, and with the powers in particular,
and to consolidate their own position, Wuhan deter-
mined to seize Nanking and Shanghai, and institute an
attack Upon foreigners at the base of their ‘‘imperialis-
tic'' power. What was not clear at the time, but lareT
became apparent, was that the foreigners and their
interests in China were not so much the object of attack
as they were the pawns in the game between right and
left wings of the Kuomingtang, and the struggle between
Chiang and Borodin. This is not, however, to minimize
the important aspects of the old conflict still being
waged under a new guise between Russia and Britain in
Asia, and the new war between communism and capital-
ism.

WUHAN w. NANKING

«3

To obtain control of southern and eastern Kiangsu,
Chiang Kai-shek made use of an ti-Communist forces
under Generals Pai Ch’ung-hsi and Hb Ying-ch’in of
Kwangsi. The troops of the first-named were the first
Nationalists to enter the Chinese sections of Shanghai
on March 22 (1927). This fact, in conjunction with the
control of the foreign settlements of Shanghai by several
thousand troops of the Western powers and Japan, pre-
vented untoward incidents with respect to foreign resi-
dents such as had been envisaged by Wuhan, although
there was serious fighting between labor unionists and
Communists, and Nationalist troops in the Chinese-
controlled sections of the city.

In Nanking developments were otherwise. Before
Pai’s and Ho’s troops could reach this city, which was
evacuated by Chang Tsung-ch’ang’s northern armies on
March 23, the Hunanese Communist-controlled troops
of Ch’eng Ch’ien, a rival of Chiang who had been Sun
Yat-sen’s chief of military affairs in 1923, entered on the
morning of the twenty-fourth and began a carefully
planned and controlled attack on foreign residents, con-
sulates, and other property, business and mission.

’^'he looting and destruction of foreign property oc-
curred for several days. Three British subjects, one
American, one French, and one Italian were killed, and
several others, including the British consul, were
wounded. The Japanese consul, ill in bed, was shot at
but not hit. A Chinese servant accompanying the
American consul on his retreat to Socony Hill was
killed. The Chinese civilians generally were unmolested,
and many of them rendered heroic assistance to the im-
periled foreigners. Many women and children had been

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

114

evacuated to Shanghai before Nanking fell to the Na-
tionalists, but others had remained, believing either that
the city would not be taken or that foreigners, who in
general were sympathetic to the non-communistic revo-
lutionists, would be in no danger. Of the women re-
maining, a considerable number were most disgracefully
treated. When all other efforts to protect foreign na-
tionals had failed, and when it became evident that the
group besieged on Socony Hill could hold out no longer,
the American consul signaled for a barrage from the
foreign naval vessels lying in the river off their city.
British and American commanders at once responded,
and under cover of their fire the Socony Hill party
effected a dangerous withdrawal over the city wall to
the ships. The antiforeign attacks ceased almost in-
stantly, and the remaining foreigners were free to leave
the following day.^

Grossly exaggerated statements were made by the
Wuhan foreign minister, Mr. Eugene Ch’en, as to the
numbers of Chinese killed and wounded by the shells of
the foreign vessels. Since the area mainly fired upon was
open country, except for a few foreign residences, it is
clear that there could have been few casualties a^e
from those suffered by the soldiers attacking Socony
Hill. Several members of rival looting bands killed and
injured each other. General Chiang Kai-shek later
stated that the probable casualties from the naval bar-
rage were six killed and fifteen injured.

The policies of the Wuhan leaders, and the actions

^For kn important account of the incidents mentioned see Mrs. Alice
Tisdale Hobart’s Within the Walls of Nanking, London: Jonathan Cape,
1928.

WUHAN w. NANKING

115

sponsored by them, had a result exactly the opposite of
what had bgen hoped. The powers did not intervene in
the interior, and General Chiang found his position
strengthened. Two days after the attack on Nanking he
reached Shanghai, where he took steps to ally himself
with the Shanghai bankers and merchants, and those
earlier members of the Kuomingtang who had refused to
co-operate with Borodin and the Communists. A suc-
cessful attack upon the Communists and labor unions in
the Shanghai area was immediately undertaken, and
much blood was shed during the first two weeks of April.
In compliance with Chiang’s orders a similar purge of
Communists and Russians took place at Canton on the
night of the fifteenth of April.

T. V. Soong shortly arrived in Shanghai from Wuhan,
as did Wang Ching-wei from Paris. Conferences of these
men with Chiang Kai-shek, Hu Han-min, and others
were held, and it was decided to call a meeting of the
■ Central Executive Committee at Nanking for April 15.
Before it could be assembled Wang Ching-wei, having
failed to reconcile Chiang with Wuhan, retired to Han-
kow. Chiang’s adherents proceeded to clear Nanking of
C^ng Ch’ien’s men and, supported by a Kuomingtang
convention of his own, he established a government
there on April 18 which disputed with that at Wuhan
for leadership of the Nationalist movement. The latter
continued to stand for radical, communistic interna-
tionalism; the former relied on nationalism and Dr.
Sun’s three people’s principles. On April 17 Chiang was
formally excommunicated from the Kuomingtang by
the Wuhan group. He had committed the unpardonable
sin of having, in the eyes of the Wuhan group, broken

ii6

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

party discipline and acted for himself. This constituted
him merely another militarist. ..

That the Chinese revolution was considered by Mos-
cow as but a step toward world-revolution, and not an
end in itself, was becoming more and more clear. Chang
Tso-lin, the ruler of Peking and Manchuria, ordered a
search of buildings adjacent to the Russian embassy in
the legation quarter on April 6. The zeal of the raiders
led them to search one of the buildings of the embassy
itself. The documents found at this time proved beyond
peradventure that Borodin was taking his orders from
Moscow, and that the soviets were aiding Feng Yu-
hsiang, as well as the southerners. Among the papers
seized was a copy of a resolution recently passed in
Moscow by the Executive Committee of the Interna-
tional Communist party, calling for the communization
of China. This had reached Peking four days after the
outbreak in Nanking. The seizure and search off
Pukow, opposite Nanking, of the Russian steamer
“Pamiat Lenina” on February a8-March i, preceding;
raids at Tientsin, on April 7, of Russian-controlled
institutions; and the search of Arcos House, in London,
on May 12, following, resulted in additional evidence
with reference to the part being played by the soviets
in China. This strengthened the position of Chiang Kai-
shek and the less radical sections of the Kuomingtang.

The mandate promulgated by Wuhan on April 7 ap-
pointing (demoting) Chiang to the command of the
Nationalist first army in the east, announced the ap-
pointment of Feng Yu-hsiang to the charge of the
second Nationalist army. Feng had returned from Mos-
cow, which he had reached on May 9, in October, 1926,

WUHAN vs. NANKING

n7

and had at last decided that policy required definite
adherence to the Kuomingtang. The split between
Chiang and Borodin, in March and April, offered Feng
an opportunity to play the one faction against the other.
Nanking and Wuhan desired to destroy each other; at
the same time each wanted to carry on the campaign
against the northern war lords, Wu Pei-fu and Chang
Tso-lin, and seize Peking. Success in this must result in
tremendous prestige to the victor. In March the Feng-
tien armies crossed the Yellow River and began their
drive through Honan. Toward the end of the following
month T’ang Sheng-chih’s armies started northward
from Hankow and, in May, Feng Yu-hsiang emerged
from Shensi, by way of Tungkwan, along the Lunghai
Railway. After severe fighting around Chumatien, be-
tween the twenty-first and the twenty-eighth of May,
with heavy losses on both sides, Chang Tso-lin ’s forces
had to retreat from Honan at the end of the month, and
Feng took Chengchow. A week later he established his
headquarters at Kaifeng. Yen Hsi-shan, the “peace
lord” of Shansi, now (June 5) allied himself definitely
with the Nationalists and raised their flag.

‘This campaign had important results. First of all,
Feng ensconced himself in northeastern Honan, of which
province he became defender — and controller. He was
now in touch with Chiang Kai-shek, who had been cam-
paigning simultaneously in northern Anhwei, and was
able to play the role of arbiter between the Nationalist
factions. To make clear his neutrality between them,
he sent identical notifications of his successes in Honan
to Nanking and to Wuhan. The Wuhan troops could
now be recalled to Hankow where they were badly

ii8

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

needed to defend the government against imminent at-
tacks of Chiang’s adherents in Hunan to the south, and
of Yang Sen, an independent militarist from Szechwan,
who had earlier been an ally of Wu Pei-fu. By the mid-
dle of June the military menace to Wuhan had been
removed, at least temporarily.

A fortnight earlier (June i), however, Messrs. Wang
Ching-wei and Sun Fo had received information of yet
another danger. A Hindu Communist observer in Wu-
han, named Roy, who was a member of the Central Ex-
ecutive Committee of the Third International at Mos-
cow, informed them that he and Borodin had received
instructions from that organization which had not been
shown to the left Kuomingtang members of the govern-
ment. The new instructions outlined a program for (i)
the confiscation of land in Hupeh and Hunan by peas-
ants acting through the Communist party without con-
sultation with the Wuhan government; (2) for the im-
mediate development within the Kuomingtang of Com-
munist leadership (3) which should, in no long period,
effect the overthrow of the Kuomingtang itself; (4) for
the creation of a court to try counter-revolutionary mili-
tarists and punish them for obstructing the plans ofThe
Communist party; and (5) for the raising of an army of
twenty thousand Communists and fifty thousand peas-
ants and laborers in Hupeh and Hunan.

To discuss their findings on this subject, as well as to
lay plans for the next military steps to be taken, the
Wuhan leaders — except Borodin, but including Blucher
— repaired to Chengchow where, during the second week
in June (1927), a conference was held with Feng Yu-
hsiang. The latter quickly learned that he had nothing

WUHAN vs. NANKING

119

to expect in the way of munitions or funds from Wuhan,
and made it^lear that he would not serve as a whip for
the chastisement of Chiang. It also became clear that if
Feng pursued Chang Tso-lin and expelled him from
Peking this would not strengthen either faction of the
Kuomingtang. On the subject of the growth of the
Russian-Communist power, and the spread of the
agrarian movement, there appeared a divergence of
opinion between the militarists and the civilians. The
former, especially T’ang Sheng-chih, were strongly in-
clined to carry out immediately a root-and-branch sup-
pression of the peasants and laborers; the latter were less
aggressive, and advocated a milder policy of discourage-
ment of the working classes.

On the dissolution of the Chengchow conference Feng
proceeded to Hsuchow in Kiangsu, at the junction of
the Lunghai and Tientsin-Pukow railroads, where, from
June nineteenth to twenty-first, he conferred with
Chiang Kai-shek. Three days later he made an address
in which he declared that he would support Chiang with
an army of two hundred thousand men in the march to
Peking— where Chang Tso-lin, six days earlier, had
esfSlblished his new government with himself as tai-yuan-
shuaiy or generalissimo. Feng next sent a telegram to
Hankow demanding the dismissal of the Russians, the
suppression of the Communists and their agrarian and
social revolution, and the withdrawal from Wuhan of
certain of the Chinese leaders themselves. In the light
of the Chengchow conference, and the steps being taken
now in Hankow, it is apparent that this telegram was
sent as the result of an understanding with Wang Ching-
wei. Sun Fo, and their followers. A few days later

120

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Chiang sent an ultimatum to Hankow making similar
demands in a manner more blunt than Feng’s.

Throughout June and the first two weeks of July the
position of Borodin and the Communists was becoming
untenable. The exposures of Russian-Communist in-
fluence, consequent upon the raids on the Russian
embassy and consulates and other offices during the
preceding months; the divulging of the instructions of
the Third International by Roy; the opposition to the
agrarian and labor movement manifested by the mili-
tarists of both Nanking and Wuhan; the enormous
losses suffered by the Wuhan troops in the May cam-
paign in Honan; Borodin’s personal problems (Mme
Borodin had been arrested on the “Pamiat Lenina” and
was a prisoner in Peking) and the state of his health;
and, most important of all, the conflicting instructions
which he received from Moscow as a result of disagree-
ment between the Trotsky and Stalin factions and the
orders of the Third International— all combined to
weaken Borodin’s position and nullify his influence. He
was caught between the conflicting forces in his own
country and those in the country whose leaders he had
come to advise. It is extremely doubtful whether^’^he
could have ultimately succeeded had there been unity
of orders from Moscow ; with disunity there, and a mael-
strom of jealous leaders — ^civilian and military — mutual-
ly destructive theories and ambitions, and a growing
antagonism to foreign interference of any sort, his posi-
tion was hopeless.

On July II, two days before the return of Wang
Ching-wei and the other Wuhan leaders from the
Chengchow conference, the first anti-Borodin demon-

WUHAN vs. NANKING

121

stration took place outside the high adviser’s office in
Hankow. The return of the leaders was followed im-
mediately by the holding of private meetings at which
it was decided to break the alliance of the Kuomingtang
with the Communist party, to outlaw the latter, to send
Borodin and his Russian colleagues back to Russia, to
suppress radicalism, to send a delegation to Moscow to
make clear the position of the Kuomingtang, and to call
a plenary session of the Central Executive Committee of
the party for August 15.

On the eighteenth General Ho Chien put Hankow
under martial law. He then banished Borodin, Bliicher,
and Eugene Chen to Ruling, a mountain resort not far
away, arrested the Communist and labor leaders, and
put many — four thousand, it was reported — to death.
In the preceding May he had carried out a similar coup
in Changsha, of which he was the Nationalist com-
mander, against those who had been engaged in a reign
of terror among the “anti-revolutionaries.” The earlier
practice had made him proficient in the suppression of
radicals, as their colleagues now found in Hankow.

While forced to retire from China, Borodin was ap-
pai'^ently not unwilling to leave. He realized that the
wave of Russian-Communist influence had been broken
on the rocks of Moscow’s disunity, and China’s new
militarism, antiforeignism, and capitalistic conserva-
tism. He had wrought well for Russia, but his day was
done. On July 27 he and his entourage left Hankow by
train on the first lap of the overland journey across
Northwest China and Mongolia — all other routes of
egress having been closed to him. At the railroad sta-
tion various members of the government gathered to bid

122

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

him farewell, among them Wang Ching-wei and T. V.
Soong, the latter having returned to Hankow on July 12 .
Borodin’s first stop was at Chengchow with Feng Yu-
hsiang who, while anxious to have the Russians out of
China and the social revolution squashed, was by no
means ready to break with Moscow, which had for
several years constituted his chief source of supplies.

With the withdrawal of Borodin, his chief Chinese ad-
herents withdrew from Hankow. Mme Sun left for
Shanghai, and shortly for Moscow, declaring that with
the stoppage of the agrarian and social revolution, and
the attacks being made on peasants and laborers, the
revolution started by her husband had been betrayed,
and that now there was nought but counter-revolution.
In an impressive statement on the political situation
issued in July she declared:

To guide us in the Chinese Revolution, Dr. Sun has given us his
Three Principles and his three policies. It is the Third Principle, that
of the livelihood of the people, that is at stake at the present time—
the principle that answers the questions of fundamental social
changes in China.

This Third Principle was felt by Dr. Sun to be basic in our Revolu-
tion. In this principle we find his analysis of social values and the
place of the laboring and peasant classes defined. These classes^^je-
come the basis of our strength in our struggle to overthrow imperial-
ism, cancel the unequal treaties that enslave us, and eifiectively unify
the country. These are the new pillars for the building of a new,
free China. Without their support, the Kuomingtang, as a revolu-
tionary party, becomes weak, chaotic and illogical in its social plat-
form; without their support, political issues are vague. If we adopt
any policy that weakens these supports, we shake the very founda-
tion of our party, betray the masses and are falsely loyal to our
leader

Dr. Sun was poor. Not until he was fifteen years old did he have
shoes for his feet, and he lived in a hilly region where it is not easy
to be a barefoot boy. His family, until he and his brother were
grown, lived almost from hand to mouth, in a hut. As a child he

WUHAN w. NANKING 123

ate the cheapest food — not riccj for rice was too dear; his main
nourishment was sweet potatoes.

Many times Dr. Sun has told me that it was in those days, as a
poor son of a poor peasant family, that he became a revolutionary.
He was determined that the iot of the Chinese peasant should not
continue to be so wretched, that little boys in China should have
shoes to wear and rice to eat. For this ideal he gave forty years of
his.life.

Yet to-day the lot of the Chinese peasant is even more wretched
than in those days when Dr. Sun w^as driven by his great sense of
human wrongs into a life of revolution, x-^nd to-day men, who profess
to follow his banner, talk of classes and think in terms of a “revolu-
tion’Vthat would virtually disregard the sufferings of those millions
of poverty-stricken peasants of China.

To-day also we hear condemnation of the peasant and labor move-
ment as a recent, alien product. This is false. Twenty, thirty years
ago Dr. Sun was thinking and speaking in terms of a revolution that
would change the status of the Chinese peasant. In his early twenties
he wrote to Li Hung-chang, petitioning for social and economic re-
forms. In 1911 he wrote an article on the agrarian question in
China, printed in Geneva, in The Socialist^ in which he said that the
basis of social and economic transformations in China is an agrarian

revolution I remember clearly the first All Kwangtung

Peasants’ Conference in Canton, in July, 1924. .... When he
reached home he [Dr. Sun] said to me, “This is the beginning of the
success of the revolution,” and he told me again the part the op-
pressed people of China must play in their own salvation

Dr. Sun’s policies are clear. If leaders of the party do not carry them
out consistently then they are no longer Dr. Sun’s true followers,
and the party is no longer a revolutionary party, but merely a tool
in the hands of this or that militarist. It will have ceased to be a
living force working for the future welfare of the Chinese people,
and will have become a machine, the agent of oppression, a parasite

fattening on the present enslaving system At the moment I

feel that we are turning aside from Dr. Sun’s policy of leading and
strengthening the people; therefore I must withdraw until wiser
policies prevail ^

The Wuhan Nationalist foreign minister, Eugene
Ch’en, also left for Shanghai and Moscow. General

^ Cf. Woo, op. ri/., Appendix II, pp. 270--73. Quoted by financial arrange-
ment with Messrs. George Alien & Unwin, Ltd.

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CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Bliicher started overland from Hankow, in the wake of
Borodin, on August ii. Teng Yen-ta, head of the
propaganda section, was shortly proscribed and dis-
creetly vanished. T’ang Sheng-chih, a militarist-oppor-
tunist of the old school, rather than a revolutionist,
now attempted to set himself up in Hankow as tuchun-
extraordinary of Hupeh and Hunan.

The publicly announced support of Chiang Kai-shek
by Feng Yu-hsiang in June, and the collapse of Wuhan
with the retirement of Borodin in July, did not place the
Nanking leader in as fortunate a position as might have
been expected. The landing of Japanese troops in Shan-
tung, and their advance to Tsinan early in July, effec-
tively blocked Chiang’s and Feng’s proposed move
toward Peking. An attempt of Chiang to ally himself
with Chang Tso-lin, in July, failed. The concentration
of Chang Fa-k’uei’s, Ch’eng Ch’ien’s, and other pro-
Communist troops at Kiukiang, followed by T’ang
Sheng-chih’s army, rendered it necessary for Chiang’s
forces to retreat southward toward Nanking, Chiang
himself having earlier left the command in the north to
Feng. The latter’s troops, the Kuominchun, were
defeated by those of Sun Ch’uan-fang and Chang
Tsung-ch’ang, allies of Chang Tso-lin, when they at-
tempted to cross from Honan to Shantung, and others
were driven back along the Lunghai Railway from
Hsuchow. From the military point of view, Chiang was
in no condition to fight the up-river armies, and he was
little stronger politically than he was militarily.

The logic of events called for a unification of the Kuo-
mingtang, now that the Communists had been expelled
and the Russians had withdrawn. But the old enmities

WUHAN Ds. NANKING

125

between the ambitious Chinese leaders of the party
rendered this difficult. Chiang disliked most, if not all,
of the members of the left faction — especially Wang
Ching-wei, who considered himself the natural leader of
the party. Wang also had a private quarrel with Hu
Han-min, who had had difficulties at times with Chiang
as well — and was to have them again — and who felt that
he, too, had a claim to the leadership of the party. The
fact was that China had a plethora of leaders and a
dearth of followers. As long as Chiang remained at Nan-
king it was impossible to heal the party breach. Accord-
ingly, in the interests of civil and military unity, he
suddenly resigned office on August la (1927) and with-
drew to Shanghai, thence to his home in Chekiang, and
somewhat later to Japan.

On retiring, Chiang denied being the cause of the split
in the party, declared that he had no personal animus
toward Borodin, although the latter had, he bluntly
affirmed, been “hypocritical in his ways, trying to make
the party serve as a scapegoat for his schemes.” Never-
theless, he announced his approval of Sino-Russian co-
operation. “Being a man of no scholarly attainments
bht fortunate enough to have been taught by Dr. Sun
Yat-sen,” Chiang stated, “I have made two resolutions
which I will never abandon, namely (A) I acknowledge
that the party is above everything and when the inter-
ests of the party are at stake each and every member of
the party should follow the principles and the party
without heeding his personal feelings and private inter-
ests. (B) I hold that the highest duty of a member of the
party is to consolidate the foundation of the party at all
costs, and for this reason I shall mobilise all available

ia6

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

resources for the purpose of suppressing all who resort
to clever ruses and hypocritical methods to shake the
foundation of our party and pollute our party principles
— in a word, all those who attempt to make the Kuo-
mingtang a dead party without a soul.”"^

He ended with a threefold exhortation: that the
Wuhan group should journey to Nanking and “jointly
direct the future of our party,” that the campaign for
the capture of Peking should be continued, and that the
authorities in Hunan, Hupeh, and Kiangsi should effect
a thorough “cleansing” of the party of Communists.

Mid-August of 1927, therefore, witnessed the elimina-
tion, officially, of the two outstanding rivals of the
period immediately following the death of Dr. Sun. It
remained to be seen what the effect of the retirement of
these outstanding personalities, and exponents of con-
tradictory principles of revolution, would be. It was
hardly to be expected that the forces, material and
ideological, which they had headed could easily be
reconciled, and such was shortly shown to be the case.

^Quoted by, and from, George E. Sokolsky, The Kuomingtang^ chap,
xxviii, in The China Year Book (1928), p. 1380.

CHAPTER IX

THE COMPLETION OF THE FIRST PHASE
OF THE NATIONALIST REVOLUTION

^ I ^HE disintegration of the left Kuomingtang-
I Communist government at Hankow, and the
M withdrawal of Chiang Kai-shek from public
life in August, 1927, were followed by a period of po-
litical confusion, business stagnation, and disillusion-
ment, which bade fair for a time to end in a condition of
affairs such as had prevailed through most of the coun-
try since the overthrow of the Manchus in 191 1-12. The
social and agrarian movements had been definitely inter-
rupted; there was no unity of aim, or principle, among
the revolutionary leaders, either civil or military; and
the attempt to complete the formal unification of the
country by the seizure of Peking had failed, partly as
a result of Japanese intervention, but mainly on account
of the strife within the party.

•As minister of foreign affairs at Nanking, Chiang Kai-
shek had appointed Mr. C. C. Wu. The latter became
Nanking’s chief negotiator in a conference at Kiukiang,
on August 24, with the Hankow left leaders, Wang
Ching-wei and Sun Fo, twelve days after Chiang’s
resignation. The Kiukiang conference was followed by a
series of conferences at Shanghai, during the second
week in September, and finally at Nanking in the middle
of the month. These were participated in by all factions
of the Kuomingtang, the Communists being excluded.

127

128

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

As a result of these conferences, and in the interim be-
tween party congresses, a Special Central Executive
Committee and a Special Central Supervisory Com-
mittee were organized. These set up a new government
at Nanking, on September 19, under the general super-
vision of T’an Yen-k’ai, with a bourgeois-capitalist
orientation.

The conditions which prevailed were not conducive
to the strengthening of the '‘September government,''
as it was called. Since it was not the creation of a party
congress, it could not be considered as technically
legitimate. Chiang Kai-shek, the outstanding general
of the party, was in retirement. Mme Sun had broken
with the party and started on a pilgrimage to Moscow.
T'ang Sheng-chih was established independently in
Hankow from which he was to be driven in October by
two of Nanking's generals, only to be followed by one
of them, Ch'eng Ch'ien, who in turn broke with Nanking
on December 5 and set up independent rule. Feng Yu-
hsiang was an unknown quantity biding his time. Yen
Hsi-shan of Shansi was engaged in a renewed struggle
with Chang Tso-lin's armies in the north. South China
was in as great confusion as usual. Worst of all was the
temporary failure of Wang Ching-wei and T. V. Soong
to co-operate.

Wang withdrew from the Shanghai conferences on
September 13, repaired to Kiukiang and Hankow for
the nonce, and six weeks later appeared in Canton with
Soong to set up a new Nationalist government which
should be under civilian control and which would, of
course, lean to the left. Here for several months the
Kwangsi general, Li Chi-shen (Chai-sum), had been in

THE COMPLETION OF THE FIRST PHASE 129

authority, and had in April carried out the Russian and
Communist 1. purge in accordance with Chiang Kai-
shek’s instructions. Following the fall of the Wuhan
government, Chang Fa-k’uei’s army had split at Kiu-
kiang; the Communist sections, under Generals Yeh
Ting and Ho Lung, had moved southeastward to
Swatow where they had established Red control; Chang
Fa-k’wei, and the major part of the army, had reached
Canton and nominally joined with Li, although actually
the two generals were rivals for control of the city.

In mid-November, Wang Ching-wei and Li Chi-shen
left Canton for Shanghai to attend a preparatory con-
ference for the Fourth Plenary Session of the Central
Executive Committee of the Kuomingtang.^ Chang Fa-
k’uei also left for Hongkong, supposedly to travel
abroad. Arriving at Hongkong, W’ang deserted Li, and
secretly returned to Canton, as did Chang Fa-k’uei.
Meanwhile, Chang’s acting commander had seized con-
trol of the city, driving out Li Chi-shen’s troops. Re-
stored to power, Chang Fa-k’uei undertook to follow
Li’s policy of expelling the remaining Communists, in-
cluding the remnants of the former strikers against
Hongkong. While most of Chang’s troops were pursuing
Li’s army into Kwangsi, a Communist coup in the city
was carried out with the aid of Yeh Ting. This took
place on December ii, and was accompanied by much
destruction of property. Three days later General Li
Fu-lin, a friend to Chiang Kai-shek, carried out an anti-
Communist coup, broke the power of the Reds, and put
many of them to death.

The anti- Communist coup was accompanied by an

^CLAxno\AJ.TojTLhesie6..),SurveyofInternatio7ialAffairs,i^^j,^-p.:i6o-6i.

130

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

attack upon the Russian consulate-general. The entire
staff was arrested and subjected to public rhumiliation
and insultj several members being summarily put to
death. The consulate was closed;, and the consul-general
and the surviving members of his staff were later de-
ported.

Simultaneously the Russian consulates at Shanghai
and Hankow were closed and their staffs deported. In
Hankow, but not at Shanghai, there was much brutal-
ity directed against both Russian and Chinese Com-
munists connected with the closing of the consulate.
Many were imprisoned and several Chinese were
executed- All Russian consulates in Central and South-
ern China were now ordered closed by Nanking.

The year 1927, which had opened with the Russians
in practically dictatorial control of a large part of the
country, ended with their official elimination south of
the Yangtze and strained relations with the soviet
government of Moscow. Russian and Chinese Com-
munist influences were, however, by no means broken,
as subsequent events were to prove; they were merely
driven underground.

The withdrawal of Chiang Kai-shek had not resulted
in the establishment of a strong government at Nanking
for the reasons stated. On November 10 he returned to
Shanghai from Japan where he had gone, according to
statements made at the time, to obtain the consent of
the Soong family to his marriage to Miss Soong Mei-
ling, a sister of Mme Sun Yat-sen, Mme. H. H. Kung,
and T. V. Soong. Chiang’s former wife, according to
Russian reports,^ had kept Wuhan supplied with news

^ Cf. Fischer, of. cit.^ II, 667.

THE COMPLETION OF THE FIRST PHASE 131

of her husband’s movements following his break with
Wuhan in the preceding March and April. Instead of
committing suicide, as, according to the same source, he
at one time contemplated, he broke with his wife, and
supplanted her by one more devoted to his cause. The
marriage with Miss Soong took place, in Shanghai on
December i (1927).

Chiang and Wang Ching-wei had for some time been
drawing together on the basis of a common opposition
to the September government at Nanking. On Novem-
ber 4, six days before Chiang’s return, Wang had sent a
telegram from the south expressing unalterable opposi-
tion to the Special Committee at Nanking on the ground
that it was a counter-revolutionary organization and
that it constituted “an obstacle to the convention of the
4th plenary session of the Central Executive and Super-
visory Committees.”^ Chiang now headed a center
group in the Kuomingtang which stood for conciliation
of the Western Hills, the Kwangsi, and the left-wing
groups, and presided over conferences held in his resi-
dence in the French concession at Shanghai during the
week preceding his marriage. Wang supported Chiang,
while Li Chi-shen held conferences at his Shanghai resi-
dence at which Wang’s military supporters in the south
were bitterly denounced, especially Chang Fa-kwei.
The Communist attack on Canton, on December 14,
greatly strengthened Chiang and his center group.

On December 10 Chiang was offered his former post of
commander-in-chief, which he indicated his readiness
to accept. Early in January, 1928, he returned to Nan-
king where he completely dominated the situation. On

^ T/2<? C/zzw-s Yifisr (1929-30)3 p. 1164.

132

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

the first of the following month the Fourth Plenary
Session of the Central Executive and Central Super-
visory committees of the Kuomingtang was opened in
Nanking, and a reorganization of the party, as well as
of the government, was entered upon. Chiang was offi-
cially restored to office as commander-in-chief, and, in
addition, was made chairman of the Central Executive
Committee and of the Military Council. The holding of
these positions by one man meant the postponement
for an indefinite period of the application of the prin-
ciple of civilian control of the Kuomingtang for which
Wuhan, and especially Wang Ching-wei, had stood.
The union with the soviets and the Chinese Communists
was definitely broken; the San Min principles of Dr.
Sun were reaffirmed, and it was made clear that the Na-
tionalist revolution had for its object the salvation and
the domination of no particular social group. The labor
and peasant groups were now further discouraged. All
this meant victory for the “bourgeois-capitalists.”

Having failed in principle at Wuhan, Canton, Shang-
hai, and Nanking, Wang Ching-wei had again with-
drawn into European exile before the convening of the
Fourth Plenary Session on February i. Messrs. Hu
Han-min, C. C. Wu, and Sun Fo now decided to follow
his example and travel abroad for a period.

Mr. Wu was succeeded as foreign minister until May
by General Huang Fu, one of the early Tung Meng Hui-
Kuomingtang revolutionists of the 1911-13 period. He
was followed in office in June by Mr. C. T. Wang, who
has continued to hold the portfolio of foreign affairs to
the present (August, 1931), and who has been remarkably

THE COMPLETION OiF THE FIRST PHASE 133

successful in negotiating new treaties with the powers/
Both these -ministers were born in Chekiang, General
Chiang’s home province. Mr. T. V. Soong, now the
commander-in-chief’s brother-in-law, assumed the du-
ties of minister of finance, perhaps the most difficult
post in the government, and has acquitted himself so
well that he has at times been spoken of as the Alexander
Hamilton of the revolution.

The manifesto of the Fourth Plenary Session an-
nounced that the Nationalist revolution had “entered
the period of political and economic reconstruction”
and would thereafter “devote itself to the strengthening
of its foundation by carefully carrying out the instruc-
tions of its late leader and exerting to the utmost of its
ability in completing various programmes of reconstruc-
tion,” as laid down in Dr. Sun’s Principles of National
Reconstruction.

On the councils and committees were appointed most
of the outstanding men who had at one time or another
been connected with the party, regardless of faction, and
of their presence in, or absence from, the country. Men
of such divergent views as the conservative Wang
Chung-hui; Chang Chi of the Western Hills group; the
elder statesman Tsai Yuan-pei, sometime chancellor of
the Peking National University, and an “intellectual
anarchist”; Feng Yu-hsiang of the Kuominchun; Yen
Hsi-shan of Shansi; T’an Yen-k’ai of the Wuhan and
Nanking September governments; Li Tsung-jen and Li
Chi-shen of the Kwangsi faction; the exile, Wang Ching-
wei, of the extreme radical left; and Sun Fo, Hu Han-

^ Cf, H. B. Morse and H. F. MacNair, Far Eastern Internatiofial Relations^
chap. XXX. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931.

134

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

min, and C. C. Wu of the right, who had gone abroad
before the session was convened, were made members of
the Government Council of forty-nine members.*

The immediate object of such a high degree of super-
ficial unity was the reopening of the campaign against
Chang Tso-lin, Chang Tsung-ch’ang, and Sun Ch’uang-
fang, the surviving war-lord opponents of the Kuoming-
tang in the north. For this campaign Chiang Kai-shek
resumed command of the first-army group, while Feng
Yu-hsiang and Yen Hsi-shan commanded the second-
and third-army groups, respectively. Later Li Tsung-
jen was appointed to command the fourth-army group.
It was broadly agreed that Chiang’s forces should push
north on both sides of the Tientsin-Pukow Railway;
Feng’s troops would do the same along the Peking-Han-
kow line; while Yen’s men would attack the area west
of Peking and along the Peking-Suiyuan line. On April 7
the campaign was opened; by the thirtieth part of
Chiang’s troops had reached Tsinan, the capital of
Shantung.

In the preceding year Japan’s intervention in Shan-
tung had been a contributing factor to the failure of the
Nationalists to capture Peking. On April 20, 1928, the
Japanese legation in Peking notified the Foreign Office
of the Tai-yuan-shuai of the intention of Tokyo to dis-
patch some five thousand men “by way of Tsingtao to
places along the Kiaochow-Tsinan Railway for the pur-
pose of protecting the Japanese residents, and as an
emergency measure, in view of the growing seriousness
of the situation there, pending their arrival, to send to

^ Cf. G. E. Sokolsky, ‘‘The Kuomingtang,” The China Year Book (1929-
30)5 chap, xxvi, p. 1173.

THE COMPLETION OF THE FIRST PHASE 135

Tsinan three companies out of the Japanese Infantry-
stationed in China.”’^ Despite Peking’s protests, and ac-
ceptance of the responsibility for the protection of
Japanese and lives and property, the troops were sent.
When Chiang Kai-shek reached Tsinan on May i, he
found them in control of most of the foreign part of the
city, and of the Kiaochow Railway which links it with
Tsingtao. On April 28 Nationalist troops had cut this
line just east of Tsinan, despite a warning from the
Japanese commander, Fukuda, that it must not be
touched.

At first it appeared that conflict between the Chinese
and the Japanese armies might be avoided, but on May
3 serious fighting between them occurred which was
renewed May 8-10. Considerable losses of life and
destruction of property ensued. The Chinese were de-
feated, and the Japanese assumed control of the Kiao-
chow Railway, part of the Tientsin-Pukow line im-
mediately north and south of Tsinan, and of that city
itself.

The Tsinan incident prevented Chiang from partici-
pating directly in the continued advance to Peking. He
appointed a deputy commander of his army group,
which was shortly placed under the command of Feng
Yu-hsiang, withdrew westward to plan the forward
movements of the other Nationalist armies, and shortly
returned to Nanking. There he appointed Yen Hsi-shan
to the command of the Peking and Tientsin gendar-
merie — in this way preventing Feng from enjoying a
victory which had been denied to himself, and keeping
the latter, for the time being, from becoming a source of

^ The China Year Book (i9^29”3o), p. 879.

136

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

danger in the north at the moment of Chang Tso-Iin’s

passing.;-^

that the intervention of Japan in Shantung:
was not to result as it had in the previous year^ and that
his ow^n position was weakened by it, and receiving from
the Japanese minister in Peking an exceedingly plain
warning, on May 18, of the desirability of his immediate
withdrawal to Mukden, Chang Tso-lin retired from
Peking on the night of June 2 -^. On the fourth his train
was bombed as it was drawing into Mukden, and Chang
himself was mortally wounded, if not killed; his death
was officially announced on the twenty-first. His eldest
son, Hsueh-liang, had assumed supreme command of
Manchuria on the preceding day.

On June 8, five days after Chang Tso 4 in’s withdrawal
from the northern capital Yen Hsi-shan’s troops
marched into that city, followed by Yen himself, ac-
companied by Pai Ch’ung-hsi, the Kwangsi leader from
Wuchang, two or three days later. The main campaign
was now at an end. Officially, but only in theory, all of
China proper was under the control of the Nationalist
government at Nanking. The object of the campaign
having been accomplished, Chiang, on June 10, officially
laid down his powers as commander-in-chief and chair-
man of the Military Council which he had assumed four
months before. Eleven days later Nanking hopefully
changed the name of Peking, that is, ^'northern capital,’'
to P’eiping, '"northern peace." Nanking was now de-
clared to be the capital of the country.

Shortly, there occurred a ceremony reminiscent of
that which Dr. Sun had carried out before the tomb of
the first Ming emperor at Nanking in 1912. On July 3

THE COMPLETION OF THE FIRST PHASE 137

Chiang Kai-shek reached Peking, to be followed there
by Feng Yu-hsiang three days later; other government
and military leaders had also arrived. At Pi Yiin-ssu,
a magnificent Buddhist temple in the Western Hills,
Sun Yat-sen’s body was lying waiting final sepulture at
Nanking. To his temporary tomb the Nationalist lead-
ers resorted on July 6 to announce to the spirit of Dr.
Sun the fulfilment of his wishes — the fall of the northern
war lords, the capture of Peking, and the unification of
the country under a government based on his principles.
That the widow and the only son of the leader were in
exile because they did not approve of the interpretation
for the moment of his principles, and that Chang Tsung-
ch’ang and his troops were still causing confusion in
northeastern Chihli, appear not to have been notified to
his spirit.

CHAPTER X

' ■ THE FIVE-POWER GOVERNMENT ,

AT NANKING

T he capture of Peking, which was considered
to complete the official unification of the coun-
try, was interpreted as ending the first of the
three phases — the military and destructive phase — of
the revolution outlined by Dr. Sun. Although fighting
in the north, particularly in Shantung, continued
through the remainder of the year, and on into 1929, the
Nanking leaders entered with enthusiasm upon the con-
solidation of the position of their government. In this
they were supported by the Chinese business groups in
Shanghai who participated in an economic conference,
under the lead of Mr. T. V. Soong, during the latter part
of June (1928). Army disbandment, to be followed by
colonization by the soldiers, reorganization of the cur-
rency and the establishment of a single national mint,
the budgeting of government funds and the cutting-
down of expenditures — -all these were advocated by this
conference. Military and financial conferences followed
in Nanking in July. Here the old rivalries between jeal-
ous, suspicious, and ambitious generals, and the age-old
struggle between the principles of centralization of the
government and autonomy for the provinces, prevented
any practicable sulution being found for the manifold
problems faced by the government. Symptomatic of
both these difficulties was the increasing strain through-

138

FIVE-POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 139

out the year 1928 in the relations between General
Chiang Kai-shek and the Kwangsi faction.

With the greatest difficulty Chiang finally convened
the Fifth Plenary Session of the Central Executive Com-
mittee of the Kuomingtang on August 8 (1928). It
should have been opened a week earlier but disagree-
ments between the Kwangsi faction and its supporters,
and the left wing, prevented it. The session broke up
within a week of its opening as the result mainly of a
dispute regarding the proposed abolition of the party
branch political councils in the provinces. The left-wing
leaders opposed, while the Kwangsi group favored, their
retention.

A somewhat passive, but disturbing, participant was
Marshal Feng Yu-hsiang, w'ho played the dual role of
Diogenes and Cato: “He scandalized official etiquette
by driving about the city in a motor lorry dressed in a
common soldier’s uniform and a shocking old hat, and
lectured the Kuomingtang on extravagant living and
I the lavishness with which rewards were served out but

I no punishments Having surveyed the political

and financial leanness of Nanking, he withdrew to his
own satrapy of Shensi and Kansu. Here he entered upon
: the extirpation of Chinese Moslem insurgents against

j his rule who appear to have been stimulated by Chang

I Tso-lin in the preceding spring as part of his campaign

i against the Kuominchun. Within six weeks Feng had the

I Moslems retreating — but slaughtering the Chinese infi-

i dels whom they could reach. Famine played a part in

j the grim struggle. It is estimated that between a quarter

I and a half million lives were sacrificed as a result of war

^ North China Herald^ CLXX, No, 3204 (January 5, 1929), 7.

140

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

and famine in the northwest. But, for the moment, Chi-
ang Kai-shek and N anking were safe from attack by F eng.“
This gave them a chance to concentrate upon the
Kwangsi generals in the following year, when it became
evident that the military phase of the revolution had
been completed only in theory and aspiration by the fall
of Peking and the promulgation in October of an
Organic Law of the National Government of the Re-
public of China.

This Law was one of the two outstanding results of
the August session of the Central Executive Committee;
the other was the fruitless, but nevertheless statesman-
like, memorandum of Minister Soong demanding the
putting into effect by the government of a budget sys-
tem. Mr. Soong declared that he had been forced to
find ^ 1, 600,000 silver every five days throughout the
period of the recent campaign for Peking, although he
had had no control of appropriations or expenditures.*
Despite- the obvious need for a budgeting of national
finances, no provision looking toward such was made
until late in 1930.

Dr. Sun had called for the promulgation of a pro-
visional — not a permanent — constitution to serve as a
guard for the rights of the government and of the people
during the second, or tutelage, phase of the revolution.
Something of this nature the Nanking Law Codification
Bureau demanded should now be prepared, and the
Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee
approved the idea before its dissolution on mid-August.

^Arnold J. Toynbee (td.). Survey of International Affairs^ 2928, p. 385.

* North China Herald^ CLXX^ No. 3204 (January 5, 1929), 7; The China
Year Book (1929-30), p. 635,

FIVE-POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 141

Messrs. Tai Chi-t’ao, a Szechwanese who had served as
secretary tQ Dr. Sun in 1913 during his exile in Japan;
Wang Ch’ung-hui, Dr. Sun’s outstanding friend in the
legal profession; and Hu Han-min quickly prepared the
document known as the Organic Law. Hu had returned
to China early in September and, after some hesitation,
had happily expressed his approval of the Nanking
regime, a fact of considerable significance in the stabil-
ization of the government. The Organic Law was pre-
pared between September 19 and October 3, and was
formally instituted on October 4.

On the day on which the Organic Law' was completed
the Central Executive Committee of the party promul-
gated a set of six principles “with a view to carrying out
Dr. Sun’s Three Principles of the People in accordance
with the Outline of National Reconstruction and with a
view to training the people during the Period of Tutelage
in the exercise of political authority until the Constitu-
tional Period begins in order to arrive at a democracy of
all the people. . . . .” The six principles provided for
the guidance of the people by the Kuomingtang Na-
tional Congress “on behalf of the People’s Convention”;
for the execution of the will of the Congress by the
Central Executive Committee; for the training of the
people “in the gradual adoption of the four political
powers, namely: election, recall, initiative, and referen-
dum . . . for the wielding of power by the national
government through the five divisions outlined in the
Organic Law; for the supervision and guidance of the
national government by the “Political Council of the
Central Executive Committee of the Kuomingtang of
China”; for the “amendment and interpretation of the

142

CHINA : IN' REVOLUTION

Organic Law .... by resolutions adopted by the Po-
litical Council of the Central Executive Cpmmittee of
^'the/Kuomingtang.^'’ „ '

Of outstanding significance was the specific declara-
tion in the preamble to the Organic Law of October 4
that it was ordained and promulgated by the Kuoming-
tang. In other words, China was to continue to be ruled
for an indefinite period — until the second phase of the
revolution should end — by a party. No provision was
made for legal opposition to the established govern-
ment. In this the revolutionary leaders followed the
precedents established by the Russian bolshevists and
the Italian fascists.

The Organic Law is in six chapters, exclusive of the
preamble. It contains no bill of rights.^ Chapter ! pro-
vides that the ''National Government shall exercise all
the governing powers of the Republic of China,” includ-
ing the supreme command of all forces, the right to de-
clare and end war, to grant amnesties, and to restore
civic rights. It outlines a government composed of five
Yuan, or boards, namely, the executive, legislative,
judicial, examination, and control, whose presidents and
vice-presidents shall be "appointed from among the
State Councillors.” These last number twelve to six-
teen, and constitute a council which conducts national
affairs and settles points referred to them by two or more
of the Yuans. Provision is made for a "President [or
Chairman] of the National Government” — not a presi-
dent of China — who receives foreign diplomats, repre-
sents the government in state functions, concurrently
serves as commander-in-chief of the forces of the re-

^ Cf. The China Year Book (1929-30), pp. 709-12.

FIVE^POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 143

public, presides over the State Council, and signs all
laws .and mandates issued. by that group* 'But these
must be countersigned by the' presidents, of the five
Yuan.

Chapters ii, iii, iv, v, and vi of the Organic Law out-
line the powers of the five Yuan. The executive Yuan,
which was presided over by T’an Yen-k'ai until his death
in 19:29, is declared to be 'The highest executive organ
of the National Government’'; it has a president and
vice-president, and its duties are carried out through a
non-stated number of ministers and commissions wdiich
latter take charge of specified executive matters. The
ministries are headed by a minister and a political and
an administrative vice-minister; the last is a routine
officer less powerful than his political colleague. Each
commission has a chairman and a vice-chairman. The
ministers and vice-ministers, chairmen and vice-chair-
men, are appointed and removed by the president of the
Yuan. The ministers and the commission chairmen
may, on occasion, attend meetings of the State Council
and of the legislative Yuan, Into the latter the execu-
tive Yuan may introduce bills within its competence,
budgets, recommendations for amnesties, and matters
having to do with war, peace, and international affairs.
Other matters loosely defined, or entirely undefined,
may be settled by the executive Yuan itself.

The legislative Yuan, under the presidency of Hu
Han-min until his resignation on March i, 1931, is the
"highest legislative organ of the National Government.”
It is composed of "from forty-nine to ninety-nine mem-
bers, who shall be appointed by the National Govern-
ment at the instance of the President of the said Yuan.”

144

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

The term of office for its members is two years, and
they may not be concurrently “non-politi(;al adminis-
trative officials of the various organs of the central or
local governments.” The resolutions of the legislative
Yuan “shall be decided upon and promulgated by the
State Council.”

The judicial Yuan, under the presidency of Wang
Ch’ung-hui, is the“highest judicial organ of the National
Government,” and takes charge of “judicial trials,
judicial administration, disciplinary punishment of
officials, and trial of administrative cases. The granting
of pardons and reprieves and the restitution of civic
rights shall be submitted by the President of the
Judicial Yuan to the National Government for ap-
proval and action.” This Yuan may “introduce in the
legislative Yuan bills on matters within its own compe-
tence.”

Of outstanding interest to foreign students of the
Chinese revolution, are the examination and the control
Yuan, which are peculiarly Chinese, and constitute a
liaison between old and new Chinese governmental con-
cepts. In 1905 the ancient system of literary examina-
tions which had served as the road trodden by aspirants
to the civil service was swept away by the old empress
dowager, Tzu Hsi.^ Reform of the system, rather than
abolition, would, in the light of subsequent develop-
ments, appear to have been the wiser move. Dr. Sun
and his posthumous followers, realizing the need for
some system of examination of knowledge and general
qualifications of would-be officials, outlined such in the
examination Yuan, over which Tai Chi-t’ao was to pre-

^ Cf. mpra^ chap, i, p. 12.

FIVE~POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 145

side. ''All public functionaries shall be appointed only
after havings according to law, passed an examination
and their qualifications for public service having been
determined by the examination Yuan.’" Not . being re-
troactive, this provision would not, of course, affect
those already in office; if, and as, it is applied to later
candidates it should go far toward building up a quali-
fied civil service. The examination Yuan may also
"introduce in the legislative Yuan bills on matters with-
in its own competence.” No provision was incorporated
with reference to the size of the Yuan.

The control Yuan, the presidency of which was offered
to Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei, who declined it, and later given to
Yu Yu-jen of Shensi, is the "highest supervisory organ”
of the government, and controls impeachment and
auditing. It is composed of "from nineteen to twenty-
nine members, who shall be appointed by the National
Government at the instance of the President of the
said Yuan,” The security of their term of office is to be
determined by law, and the members may not "concur-
rently hold any office in any of the organs of the central
or local governments,” This Yuan, like the others, also
has the right to "introduce in the legislative Yuan bills
on matters within its own competence.”

The incorporation of the control Yuan, provision for
the inauguration of which was not made until late in
1930,^ means the restoration in essence of the principle
of the ancient imperial censorate which is to be traced
to the third century before Christ.^ Originally serving

^ Cf. j&w/, chap, xi, pp. i8o~8i.

® Cf. F. C, Hsieh, The Government of China (1644-igii)^ pp. 87-98; S.
Couiing (ed.). Encyclopaedia Sinica^ p. 85; H. B. Morse, Tt'ade and Adminis^
tration of China (3d ed), p. 45.

146 CHINA IN:REV0LUTIGN::V:

as critics of the emperor, the censors' duties were
hroadened to.inc criticism of the officials;; The cen-
sors were generally known as the ‘^eyes and ears
officials." Their position was honorable and influential,
but onerous and not without personal danger to the
holder. According to Wang Ch'ung-hui, who had often
discussed the principles of the five-power constitution
with Dr. Sun, the practical application of the principles
of the censorate caused much cogitation on the part of
the latter.

No attempt was made in igaS to work out the details
of application of the censorate principle, or any other,
involved in the Organic Law. The main object was to
agree upon working principles and to leave details to be
agreed upon as occasion should arise, after the govern-
ment should have consolidated its position. The power
and the duty of interpretation and amendment of the
basic law were, by separate resolution, left to the Cen-
tral Executive Committee of the Kuomingtang.^

Co-operating with the State Council and the five
Yuan provided by the Organic Law are the Central
Military Council and the Central Research Council
which were not mentioned in that Law. Through the
former, in time of war, the chairman of the State Council
functions as commander-in-chief of all forces of the re-
public. At other times the Military Council is controlled
by the minister of war.

The Research Council, which carries out its duties
through several bureaus, heads all scientific and aca-
demic research on behalf of the central government, and

^ Cf. Mr. Wang’s article on the preparation of the law in the China Crilic^
October 1929, quoted in The China Year Book (1929-30), pp. ii86~88.

FIVE-POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 147

is presided over by a director appointed by the govern-
ment.

As specified in the preamble to the Organic Law of
October 4, 1928, the “national government,” as it has
been termed since that date, is the creature of the Kuo-
mingtang. There is no pretense that sovereignty at
present rests in the people; on the contrary, it is con-
sidered to lie in the Party Congress. China is ruled, in
so far as the Nanking government is concerned, by the
Kuomingtang, which, in 1929, had a registered member-
ship of about 422,000, of whom more than one-ninth
were overseas Chinese. This means, therefore, that
about one Chinese in one thousand is a member of the
party in power, and no opposition party may legally
exist.

To understand the relationship between the govern-
ment and the party it is necessary to consider the organ-
ization of the Kuomingtang. The constitution of the
latter was adopted at the First National Congress in
1 924.^ Amended by the second and third congresses of
1926 and 1929, respectively, it is the basic law of the
Chinese constitution.

Technically, the supreme organ of the Kuomingtang
is the Biennial Congress, which is composed of members
elected in theory — until March 27, 1929 — by the pro-
vincial, special municipal, and special administrative
district conventions.^ The Congress may, under certain
conditions, be convened oftener than every two years,
or it may be postponed for not longer than one year. Its
duties are fourfold: (i) to approve the reports of the
government; (2) to amend the constitution of the party;

^ Cf. supra^ chap, vii, p. 93. ® Cf. post^ chap, xi, p. 165.

i:4b:

CHINA' REVOLUTION:

(3) to enunciate new aims for the government; (4) to
elect ■the; members of the. Central Executive Committee,
of: the' partyj^ the Central Supervisory Committee.

The Central Executive Committee is supposed to
have thirty-six members who meet in plenary session
at least semiannually. The official duties of this Com-
mittee are: ■ To represent the Party in' external
relations; (2) To carry out the resolutions of the Na-
tional Congress; (3) To organize Party headquarters in
different provinces and districts; (4) To organize Cen-
tra! Party headquarters; (5) To decide on the allocations
of the Party contributions and finances.'’^ As mentioned
above, the Central Executive Committee has the duty,
also, of interpreting the Organic Law of October 4, 1928.

The Central Supervisory Committee likewise meets
at least semiannually; it has twelve members whose
duties are: ''(i) To decide on the punishment of mem-
bers violating the Party discipline; (2) To audit the ac-
counts of the Central Executive Committee; (3) To re-
view the progress of Party affairs; (4) To supervise the
conduct of the National Government and see if its
policies and record conform to the policies of the Party.”^
When not in session each of these committees is repre-
sented by a Standing Committee of from five to nine
members elected from and by the Committee. That of
the Central Executive Committee holds supreme power
when neither the Committee nor the Congress is in
session.

To the Central Political Council of the party the
Central Executive Committee delegates considerable ad-

^ M. T, Z. TyaUj Two Years of Nationalist China^ pp. 26-27. Shanghai*.
Kelly and Walsh j 1930.

FIVE-POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 149

miiiistratiFe power^ but retains the right of approval or
disapproval. n This couneii earlier had a membership of
from forty-nine to ninety-nine members; included in it
were all the, members of the Central Executive Com-
mittee itself and the State Council of the national gov-
ernment. By a resolution of the Central Executive Com-
mittecj however^ following the Third Party Congress of
•March, 1929, the membership was cut to 50 per cent,
or less, of the combined membership of the Central
Executive and Supervisory committees to be chosen by
the Standing Committee of the former.

The Central Political Council meets weekly and refers
its resolutions to the State Council which, meeting
weekly, passes most of them on to the executive Yuan;
this, in turn, refers them to the appropriate ministry or
commission. By the Central Political Council of the
party the presidents and vice-presidents of the govern-
mental Yuan are appointed from the membership of the
State Council.

During the session of the Fourth Plenary Session of
the Central Executive Committee, in November, 1930,
it was decided that a closer linking of the Central Po-
litical Council with the executive departments of the
government w^as desirable, and that it should be made
by the appointment of the political vice-ministers as
special secretaries of the political council committees on
foreign affairs, military affairs, finance, economics, edu-
cation, legislation, and district autonomy. By a decision
of the Standing Committee of the Central Executive
Committee on November 25 (1930), 'Tersons shoulder-
ing high responsibilities of the Party and the State and
whose official status are above the rank of Teh-jen (ist

150 CHINA IN':; REVOLUTION

rank specially appointed) may, upon the decision of the
GentrM ' Executive Committee, be appoin'ted:^ M
of ' the CentraLPolitic Council. The number of; such'
members shall not, however, exceed one-fourth of the
membership of the Council (who are members of the
Central Committees).’'

While the power of legislative initiative lies in theory
with the national government through the legislative
Yuan, the actual control of legislation is in the party.
After the legislative Yuan has passed a measure, it must
be referred to the State Council, which passes it on to
the Central Executive Committee by way of the Central
Political Council, or directly to the Central Executive
Committee which passes it in turn to the Central Po-
litical Council. When approved by both the Central
Executive Committee and the Central Political Council,
the measure is then returned to the State Council for
promulgation.

From time to time the presidents and vice-presidents
of the five Yuan, the chairmen of the executive com-
missions, and the ministers of state under the executive
Yuan (that is, the ministers of the interior and health;
foreign affairs; military affairs; the navy; finance; agri-
culture, mining, industry, commerce, and labor; educa-
tion; communications; and railways) meet in govern-
mental administrative conference for purposes of co-
ordination of their respective functions. Likewise the
members of the State Council, the presidents of the five
Yuan, and others elected by the National Conference
meet in governmental conference, under the presidency
of the chairman of the State Council, to consider and
enunciate government policies, and to see that the latter

FIVE-POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 151

coincide with those of the party. The National Confer-
ence, just mentioned, is representative of the party, and
is composed of the members of the Central Executive
and Central Supervisory committees. This Conference
lays down the broad principles of both party and gov-
ernment concerning domestic and foreign affairs.

Reference has been rhade to the dispute which de-
veloped during the Fifth Plenary Session of the Central
Executive Committee at Nanking in August, 1928. This
arose indirectly out of the provisions in chapter ii of the
constitution of the Kuomingtang for the establishment
within the provinces, and subdivisions of the provinces,
of a duplication of the party machinery. According to
the party constitution, the unit of the Kuomingtang is
the local, or subprecinct, committee, known in the ver-
nacular as the tangpu. This unit is composed of a mini-
mum of five members. Above it are the subdistrict, the
district (or Hsien), and the province, in each of which
there are a party convention and executive and super-
visory committees. As at Nanking, the executive and
supervisory committees of the province, the district, and
the subdistrict elect their standing committees.

By chapter iii of the party constitution provision is
made for a practically parallel organizational develop-
ment in special administrative areas, such as Tibet and
Mongolia; in cities having special administrative organ-
izations; and in areas outside China in which numbers of
Chinese reside.

The briefest analysis of the Nationalist party and the
national government makes clear certain factors and
characteristics of importance. In the first place, it is
clear that the two organizations are inextricably inter-

152

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

twined in organs which are based primarily on Russian
soviet ideology. This is to be traced to the early Boro-
din period of 1924-25. The Organic Law of 1928 added
the earlier ideas of Dr. Sun for a system which should
be based on Chinese as well as Western European
thought and experience. To the division of governmen-
tal powers along executive, legislative, and judicial lines
he had added the two Chinese divisions of the civil
service and the censorate, thereby evolving a system
more in keeping with Chinese experience than either the
parliamentary or presidential or soviet systems of the
West. Of his plans for a five-power constitution Dr. Sun
was exceedingly proud, describing it as “the fruit
exclusively of my work,” and “the fruit of my labours
alone.”' It was characteristic of the strife between the
party factions that while the ideas of the party founder,
or tsung-liy as Dr. Sun came to be called, were in-
corporated in the Organic Law, no real swing away from
the committee system of the soviets resulted; jealousy,
and fear of power centered in one man, prevented this.

The necessity of the moment resulted, nevertheless, in
the provision for a president (or chairman) of the na-
tional government, who is also officially commander-in-
chief of all armed forces in the “republic.” Supreme
power does not lie in the government, however, but in
the Standing Committee of the Central Executive Com-
mittee of the Kuomingtang which interprets and amends
the Organic Law. The chairman of the Standing and
Central committees is the president of the national gov-
ernment, and commander-in-chief, who is in reality the

^ Cf. Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary y Appendix II, p. 239. Quoted by-
courtesy of Hutchinson & Co. (publishers), London.

FIVE-POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 153

ruler of that part of China which accepts the mandates
of Nanking.

v The interlocking of party and government com-
mittees^. in powers and in personnel, provides a constant
check by the former upon the latter. Without the ap-
proval of the Kuomingtang the national government
can do nothing. The niembers of the Standing Com-
mittee of the party Central Executive Committee are
outside and above all iaw^ organic and other. There is
no check upon them, and from their decisions as a group
there is no recourse, except passive or military resistance
outside the immediate sphere of Nanking's influence.
This accounts for the arbitrary actions of the govern-
ment which have occurred from time to time — for
example, the practical confiscation of valuable land and
shop- frontage from otherwise poor owners in and out-
side the capital for the building of the road to Sun Yat-
sen's tomb on Purple Mountain — and which have
caused bitter criticism by those, such as Hu Shih,
the noted intellectual, who have dared to voice com-
plaint.

Since 1928 the civilian element has been, in theory,
superior to the military in both government and party.
Inasmuch as the offices of chairman of the Central
Executive Committee and its Standing Committee, the
presidency of the national government and the State
Council, and that of the Military Council are concur-
rently held by General Ghiang Kai-shek, no comments
upon the practical relationship of the civil and military
■elements within the party and the government appear
necessary.: V '

In outlining his ideas for the revolutionary reorgan-

CHINA IN.'REVOLUTIO^^

ization of the country'' Dr, Sun discussed the develop-
ment of local government in the county, otzhsiefi^ which
should become ''a true self-governing unit'’ which could
'‘count on the revolutionary government taking up a
favourable attitude toward it, and granting it all its
constitutional rights under the provisional constitu-
tion." In attempting to provide for the construction of
a government from the base to the apex. Dr. Sun was
in accord with the ideals of political scientists; probably,
also, he hoped to bridge the gap generally existent in
China between the central and the local administrative
units. To the present, however, the forces of particular-
ism, provincialism, and sectionalism have been too
strong for the practical application of the idealism of
the party founder. These have manifested themselves
through two channels mainly: the provincial, or super-
provincial, branch political councils, and the locals or
tangpus. In many cases the controlling members of
these two groups have either directly or indirectly ap-
pointed themselves to office, and have merely theo-
retically taken orders from Nanking. The tangpus have
been a constant source of irritation to the government,
to the people, and to foreigners resident in China. Little
groups, often composed mainly of self-willed, self-
styled patriots, they have interfered with business, edu-
cational, and other institutions without bothering gen-
erally to refer matters to the larger units of the local
government or to follow the will of the capital when the
latter has made known its wishes.

More dangerous to the government on occasion have
been the branch political councils at Canton, Hankow,

^ C£ ihid,y chap, iv, pp. iao~2i.

FIVE-POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 155

Kaifeng, Taiyuan, Peking, and Mukden. When the re-
organized Nanking government was formally instituted
on October 10, 1928, and Chiang Kai-shek assumed an
all-em, bracing presidency, the relation of the govern-
ment and the party to the branch councils was not
clearly defined. Yen Hsi-shan, momentarily minister of
the interior and a state councilor, was in control of the
Branch Council in his capital, Taiyuan, in Shansi; over
the one established after the fail of Peking he came to
have partial control. When a council was formed at
Mukden, it was the creature of Chang FIsueh-liang who
controlled Manchuria and who was also a member of
the State Council of the new Nanking government.
Feng Yu-hsiang, who w^as appointed to membership in
the same as well as minister of war, headed the Branch
Council in Kaifeng. These three generals, of somewhat
uncertain loyalty, ruled North China — except parts of
Shantung where the Japanese were still in control — in-
cluding Manchuria. The state councilor, Li Tsung-jen
of the Kwangsi faction, controlled Central China and
the Branch Council at Hankow, while Li Chi-shen, an-
other Kwangsi general, ruled Canton and the Branch
Council there. Supposed, constitutionally, to w^ork close-
ly with the central government, these regional councils,
and their controllers, in reality consulted their own
interests and were centrifugal, rather than centripetal,
agencies. This was to be demonstrated a short six
months later.

Paralleling the party organizations in the provinces
and main regional areas are the provincial governments
which have been officially reorganized and added to
since 1928. There are now twenty-eight provinces,

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

156

exclusive of the dependencies of Tibet and Mongolia.
These include six newly created by the national govern-
ment of Nanking, namely, Hsik’ang (formerly the west-
ern marches of Szechwan and part of eastern Tibet),
Ch’inghai or Kokonor, Ninghsia (part of Kansu and
western Inner Mongolia), Suiyuan, Chahar, and Jehol,
which last constitutes the fourth Manchurian province.
Chihli (“direct control”), the former metropolitan prov-
ince has been renamed Hopei (“north of the river”),
while Fengtien (“in obedience to heaven”) has been
changed to Liaoning, referring to the Liao River.

The province was considered by Dr. Sun as a link be-
tween the central government and the district unit of
self-government, the hsien. By the revised law of
February 3, 1930, the governmental control of a prov-
ince is to be in the hands of a group of councilors— seven
to nine in number — appointed by Nanking and presided
over by a chairman named by the central government.
Neither chairman nor councilors may, theoretically,
hold administrative office concurrently in another prov-
ince. The councilors are, of course, to rule in accord with
the principles of the Kuomingtang and the mandates of
the national government. Bearing in mind what has
been said regarding the branch political councils, the
tangpu, and the powers of the generals, it is clear that,
for the time being, the laws regarding the provinces, and
their subdivisions, merely set a goal toward which the
government may advance with the passage of time.

The policies and aims of the Kuomingtang and of the
national government are to be found outlined in the
writings of Dr. Sun, in the Canton manifesto of 1924,
in the party program laid down by the Extraordinary

1 FIVE-POWER GOVERNMENT AT NANKING 157

Congress of the party held at Canton in October, 19265
and in speeches and mandates of the party and govern-
ment leaders since' the autumn of 1928. These fall into
* two main divisions, domestic and foreign. Domestic

policy aims at the supremacy of civil over military gov-
|: ■ ernment; the establishment of a uniform policy and

j economy for the entire country based on honest and

effective administration; the abolition of arbitrarily im-
posed taxes and duties, and the bringing-in of a uniform
system of taxation based in part on a progressive income
I tax, and the reform of land taxes; the improvement of

land and water communication and transportation, and
the development of new harbors; a reform of the educa-
j tional system, including the incorporation in the state

I system of all private and Christian mission schools, the

■ regular paj^ment of teachers, and popular education for

I the masses; the uniform control of all armed forces, and

the suppression of banditry and communism; equal po-
litical, social, and economic rights for women; the de-
velopment of industries; aid to farmers by reductions in
rent, systems of irrigation and afforestation, and the
f founding of farmers’ co-operative societies and agricul-

I tural banks.

1 Foreign policy calls for the raising of the country from

w^hat is declared to be a semicolonial status to that of a
i fully sovereign member of the family of nations. This

i includes the revision, or abrogation, of the ‘'unequal

treaties” signed by China between 1842 and 1918, the
complete control by the government of the customs ad-
i ministration with tariff autonomy, the restoration to

Chinese control of the foreign-administered concessions
and settlements, and the abolition of extraterritoriality.

158

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Considerable progress has been made by the minister of
foreign affairs, Mr. C. T. Wang, in the reyision of old,
and the negotiation of new, treaties, and the settlement
of foreign problems.”^ Less has been accomplished to-
ward a solution of the innumerable problems of a
domestic nature, but a start has been made along many
lines.’ Struggles within the government and a recru-
descence of civil wars have seriously interfered, so that
the solution of many of the problems remains on paper
as a guide to the future, instead of having been put into
practice. Nor has sufficient time elapsed to allow of
evaluation of what has been accomplished. Under the
most favorable of circumstances several decades must
pass before more than a small part of the program for so
vast an area can be realized.

^ Cf. H. B. Morse and H. F. MacNair, Far Eastern International Relations^
chap. XXX. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931.

^ Cf. Tyau, op. cit.

CHAPTER XI

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31

C oncerning no country is it more necessary
to keep in mind the difference between theory
and practice than in that of China. This tru-
ism appears not always to be understood even by the
Chinese themselves, who often look upon an order, a
plan, or a legal or constitutional provision as synony-
mous with the application of the principle contained
therein. It is, unfortunately, too often overlooked by
those outside the country.

Officially China was united under the Nationalists by
the conclusion of the northern campaign in the summer
of 1928. In reality it was not. Officially the government
instituted on October 10, 1928, ruled the country; ac-r
tually it was no more than the only government at the
time which claimed to be the legitimate ruler of all
China. The territories fairly definitely controlled by
Nanking included most of the five- provinces earlier ruled
by Sun Ch’uan-fang, namely, Kiangsu, Chekiang, Fu-
kien, Anhwei, and Kiangsi.

The extremely uncertain relations existing in 1928,
following the capture of Peking, between Nanking and
the provinces along both political and military lines
have been indicated. Similar uncertainty prevailed—
and, to a considerable degree, still prevails — financially,
if Minister T. V. Soong’s reports to the Fifth Plenary
Session of August, 1928, to the Military Conference
held at the capital in the following January, and to the

159

'i6o

■CHINA IN revolution:

Third 'Plenary Session of the .Central. Executiye 'Com-
mittee held in Nanking in March^ 19303 are to be ac-
cepted. To the Military Conference he stated that of all
the country’s provinces and special districts only Kiang-
su, Chekiang, Anhwei, and Kiangsi furnished financial
reports which were ‘Tairly complete or reliable,'” and
added that '‘many of the provinces do not furnish any
reports at all, and those that do, supply data which are
either incomplete or of little use.” He further remarked
that inasmuch as the receipts of Kiangsi and Anhwei
were scarcely sufficient to meet their military expendi-
tures, the central government was forced to depend
practically upon Kiangsu — in which the capital is lo-
cated — and Chekiang. He pointed out, incidentally,
that of the estimated gross national revenue of $4575-
000,000 (silver), 78 per cent of the net revenue was ab-
sorbed by military expenditures. Fie added:

What has so far been proposed in this Memorandum presupposes
that financial unification will be achieved. If we are to face existing
conditions, we find that facts are quite otherwise and there is chaos
in national finances. There is today [January, 1929], little if any im-
provement from conditions existing during the period of warfare.
Thus the national revenues from such provinces as Hunan, Hupeh,
Kwangtung, Kwangsi, Shensi, Kansu, Honan, Shansi and Suiyuan,
not to mention those from the Three Eastern Provinces [Man-
churia], Szechwan, Yunnan, and Kweichow, are entirely appro-
priated by the localities mentioned. In the Provinces of Hopei
(Chihli), Shantung, and Fukien, the revenue officials are at least
commissioned by the Central Government, but in other provinces
they are appointed by local and military authorities and most of
them fail even to render accounts.^

On March i, 1930, Mr. Soong submitted his report on
national receipts and expenditures for the year July,

^ Cf. memorandum quoted from the North China Daily News, January i 6,
1929, in The China Year Book (1929-30), pp. 637-41.

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 161

1928 — June, 1929. By the ' summer of 1929, as a result
of the withdrawal of the Japanese forces' from Shantung,
the forced retirement of Feng Yu-hsiang, and civil war
in Central and Southeastern China, the provinces of
Shantung, Honan, Hupeh, Hunan, Kwangtung, Ivwaiig-
si, Kiangsi, and Fukien had been brought under the
more or less effective control of Nanking, But Szech-
wan, Yunnan, Kweichow, Shansi, Jehol, Suiyuan,
Chahar, Shensi, Kansu, Sinkiang, and Manchuria were
still not under the control of the central government
with the exception of the customs administration.^

It is expedient now to analyze the problems and
conditions faced by the Nationalist government from
the autumn of 1928 to the spring of 1931, to which
reference in the broad has previously been made. The
members of the Military Disbandment Conference, to
which Minister Soong reported so frankly on the
financial condition of the government, assembled in
Nanking at the close of the year 1928. Much was hoped,
but perhaps not expected, from the first gathering of the
country’s leading militarists since the fall of the Man-
chus in 1912. A majority of the leading men of both
party and government were present as well as the out-
standing generals — Chiang, Feng, Yen, Li Chi-shen, Li
Tsung-jen,' and Ho Ying-ch’in. The young Marshal
Chang Hsueh-liang of Manchuria was not present but
was represented inasmuch as he was a member of the
State Council and had recently raised the Kuomingtang
flag in his satrapy.

A not too subtle appeal to the patriotism of the gen-
erals was made by President Chiang in an address to the

^ Cf. Minister Soong's report as incorporated in Tyau, op. cU.^ pp. i47"75*

i 62

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

nation on New Year’s Day, 1929. In it he compared the
weakness of China with the strength of Japan ; the latter
he attributed to the unselfishness of the Japanese mili-
tary of the nineteenth century which he contrasted with
the selfishness of the Chinese warriors of the twentieth
century. He called on the latter to dissolve their armies
and unite in working for the good of the country. This
appeal to patriotism was followed by Minister Soong’s
economic appeal based on the impossibility of the
country’s continued expenditure of so great a part of its
finances on armies and wars. As a result of the govern-
ment leaders’ appeals and diplomacy, what appeared for
the moment an excellent start was made by the Confer-
ence on January 17; on this date resolutions were public-
ly announced calling for the division of the country into
six regions in which disbandment was to take place,
namely, Mukden (Chang Hsueh-liang), Taiyuan (Yen),
Loyang (Feng), Wuhan (Li Tsung-jen), Nanking
(Chiang), and the three practically autonomous prov-
inces of Szechwan, Yunnan, and Kweichow in the west
and southwest. The armed forces were to be reduced
to 65 divisions of 11,000 men each — which would still
cost the country $192,000,000 annually to maintain. In
the face of military outbreaks which began a month later
the plan proved theoretical and abortive.

From late September, 1928, when the remnants of
Chang Tsung-ch’ang’s forces were dispersed in Shantung
and Chihli, following the capture of Peking in June, to
late February, 1929, when Chang Tsung-ch’ang returned
from Dairen to Lungkow and Chefoo to attempt to re-
establish his power in Shantung, there was peace in
China — except for the Mohammedan rebellion in the

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 163

northwest; continued war against the Communists in
eastern Kwangtung, in Hunan, and in Kiangsi; a revolt
against Feng Yu-hsiang by one of his generals who
moved into Anhwei to create general havoc; a war be-
tween Tibetan tribes on the west frontier of Szechwan; a
revolt among the Mongols of Barga, on the northwestern
border of Manchuria; and innumerable bandit and
piratical raids in various provinces, including Kiangsu
itself. These last included the kidnapping or murder, or
both, of numerous foreigners and natives. The latter,
being more numerous and having no shadow of protec-
tion by a powerful government, suffered much more
than the foreigners.

The application of the new rules for disbandment ap-
peared imminent when Marshal Feng, Nanking’s min-
ister of war, suddenly withdrew from the Nationalist
capital, on February 7, 1929, for the avowed purpose of
putting them into effect in his own satrapy. It shortly
appeared, however, that he had left in order to be ready
to seize control of that part of Shantung, especially
Tsingtao, held by the Japanese as soon as the latter
should withdraw. To prevent this the Nanking govern-
ment was forced, on or about April 4, to request the
Japanese to postpone for a time their retirement until
its own forces could take over the area relinquished by
the Japanese. The latter, accordingly, graciously re-
mained until May 14.

This humiliating state of affairs was brought about
by the outbreak of two wars, in February and March,
and the threat of a third. The first was caused by the
return from Dairen of Chang Tsung-ch’ang, the northern
bandit war lord above mentioned; after a two months’

164

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

struggle he failed to win Shantung and withdrew again
to safety in Dairen under the protection of the Japanese.
The second war was with that section of the Kwangsi
faction ensconced at Wuhan under Li Tsung-jen.
Trouble between Nanking and the Kwangsi generals, Li
Tsung-jen, Li Chi-shen, and Pai Ch’ung-hsi, had been
breeding since the dispute at the Plenary Session over
the branch councils in August of the preceding year.
The cause of difficulty appears to have been partly
personal and partly doctrinal; it was a recrudescence of
the age-old struggle in China between centralized and
decentralized government, and was intimately con-
nected with the question of national versus provincial
(or regional) disposition of revenues. The renewal of the
quarrel occurred on February 13 — six days after Mar-
shal Feng’s precipitate exit from the capital — when the
Central Political Council at Nanking refused approval of
the Wuhan Branch Political Council’s proposal that it
supervise (use) the national revenues in the area under
its control. To intimate its disapproval of the stand
taken by Nanking, the Branch Council at Wuhan dis-
missed, on the twenty-sixth, the Nanking-appointed
chairman of the Hunan government who was a sup-
porter of Chiang and who was shortly attacked at
Changsha by a Kwangsi army.

Contemporaneously with the renewal of civil war in
Shantung and Hunan, Nanking was preparing for the
third regular session of the Kuomingtang Congress. The
question of membership in this session of the party
Congress was of extraordinary importance on account
of the renewal of the quarrel between the right and left
wings of the party. The former was in control of the

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 165

Central Executive Committee and was determined to
remain so. xAl though it was reported that President
Cliiang was in personal sympathy with the left, he was
officially bound to the right. Early in February (1929)
the president delivered an address in which he made
clear his hope that Mr. Wang Ching-wei would not re-
turn from exile to attend the Congress. Mr. Wang still
headed the left wing, whose members were now known
as Reorganizationists. To maintain the preponderance
of the right wing in the Congress, the Central Executive
Committee ruled that it would name substitutes for
absent members, and appoint representatives for the
overseas party groups. The outcome was that 42.5 per
cent of the membership of the Congress w^ere govern-
ment appointed and, since many of the Reorganization-
ists absented themselves from a meeting to which they
would not have been welcomed, the ruling group con-
trolled a large majority when the Congress was con-
vened on March 15. The natural result was a charge by
the left Reorganizationists that the Congress was
packed, a charge to wffiich color was given by the amend-
ment of article 29 of the party constitution of January
285 1924 (as amended on January 16, 1926), to read:
"'Regulations concerning the organization of the Con-
vention, the election of delegates, and the apportion-
ment of representation in the Convention, shall be made
by the Central Executive Committee.'’ This shifted the
center of power permanently from the Congress, where
it had hitherto reposed in theory, to the Central Execu-
tive Committee — in reality, of course, to the Standing
Committee of the Central Executive Committee, where
it had actually been for the past five years.

CHINA IN .revolution:

:i66'

.• 'The Congress' w.a.s in session March i,5“2:8 ; (1.92^^^^
The' .quarrei •with the 'left Reorganizationists :aiid: :the'
break with the Kwangsi faction prevented the ac-
complishment of anything of a fundamental nature. No
steps were taken toward limiting the arbitrary power of
the party and the government, or of granting rights and
guaranties to the people and training them for self-rule.
In so far as a course of action was laid dowm, it was a
middle one between the laborers and peasants, on the
one hand, and the Chinese capitalists, on the other.
Little or no encouragement was given to either.

The Central Executive and the Supervisory com-
mittees and the Political Council were reorganized. In
an attempt to placate other factions and safeguard the
^'legitimacy’' of the one in control, Mme Sun Yat-sen,
who was in opposition to the entire party, and Wang
Ching-wei, the leader of the left, and Feng Yu-hsiang
and Yen Hsi-shan were included in the Central Execu-
tive Committee, the three men being appointed to
membership in the Central Political Council. The lead-
ers of the Kwangsi faction, having been expelled from
the Kuomingtang, were omitted. One of them, Li Chi-
shen, the ruler of Canton, was arrested at Nanking and
interned, on March 21, when he arrived to participate in
the Congress and to mediate on behalf of the Wuhan
generals — an instance of illegal and arbitrary action on
the part of Chiang Kai-shek which caused much criti-
cism.

As the Russian General Bliicher had largely planned
the campaign to the Yangtze in 1926, so the German
Colonel Max Bauer, President Chiang’s personal mili-
tary adviser, planned the campaign against the Wuhan-

. . . NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-3 J 167

Kwangsi faction in 1929* Two days before the Party
Congress adjourned President Chiang left Nanking to
direct the Wuhan campaign. The Kwangsi leaders had
expected Marshal Feng, who had resigned the war
portfolio on March 1 2 and failed to attend the Congress,
to intervene on their behalf. Nanking, however, called
on Feng for aid and, possibly, , promised him Hupeh if he
replied favorably. He sent his troops into Hupeh from
Honan, but, before he could reach- Hankow, President
Chiang arrived there on April 9 as the victor over the
Kwangsi rebels. Feng was now as. disappointed as the
Kwangsi generals had been when he failed to come to
their aid.

Li Tsung-jen and Pai Ch’ung-hsi fled to their native
province to start an offensive against Canton which they
almost succeeded in taking before they were repulsed on
May 22. Incidental to this southern campaign was the
invasion of the province of Kweichow in May by the
Yunnanese troops who were ostensibly aiding Nanking
against Kwangsi. The independent governor of Kwei-
chow lost his life, and the province suffered greatly at
the hands of the Yunnanese until it came under the con-
trol of autonomous Szechwan early in July when the
invaders were expelled to their native province.

Having failed to get control of either Hankow or
Tsingtao, Marshal Feng, although still a member of the
Central Executive Committee, was in a sultry mood.
Early in May he began consolidating his position against
Nanking by destroying bridges and tunnels on the
Lunghai and P'eiping-Hankow railways. On the twenty-
fourth a government mandate was issued announcing a
punitive expedition against him. On the following day

i68

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

President Chiang sent a telegram to Feng’s generals in
which he drew their attention to the fact that their com-
mander had, during the course of years, revolted against
his superiors one after another. Two other points cov-
ered by Chiang throw considerable light on the situation
faced by Nanking at this time: “Perhaps you are not
acquainted with the fact that since the conclusion of the
Northern Punitive Expedition, the revenues from the
provinces of Shantung, Honan, Shensi and Kansu, and
the income accruing from the P’eiping-Hankow and
the Lung-Hai Railways have been entirely placed at
the disposal of Feng. In addition, the Central Authori-
ties regularly remitted $500,000 each month to him.
Since the launching of the Punitive Expedition against
Wu-Han, the monthly appropriations have been in-
creased to one million and a half. Even for the current
month the Central Authorities have paid over five

hundred thousand dollars Although Feng has

been trying every day to refute reports of his relation-
ship with Soviet Russia, in the end his actions will sub-
stantiate the reports. We dread the Communists more
than we do the sweeping floods and fierce beasts.”’' The
message ended with the announcement of the dismissal
of Feng from his “substantive and concurrent posts.”
The latter, and some of his officers, replied with a call
upon Chiang to resign, and the announcement of a
punitive expedition against him. Considerably less as a
result of Chiang’s appeal to the Kuominchun generals to
desert their commander than from the diversion of funds
from Feng to two of his generals, Han Fu-chu and Shih
Yu-san, the latter, with a few of their troops, deserted

^ The China Year Book (1929-30), p. 1211.

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 169

Feng, and announced their . adherence to Chiang. The
latter, now telegraphed Feng,: suggesting that he should'
either openly revolt or go abroad for a period to widen
his knowledge or i.mprove his health — after which he
might be restored to grace.

The detachment of two- of Feng’s generals might have
strengthened Chiang and his government had it not im-
mediately been -made evident that Yen Hsi-shan was
sympathetic to Feng. In a message to the latter Yen
declared , that he loved the country, the Kuomingtang,
and Feng '‘equally,” and invited Feng to join with him
in surrendering his forces “to be reorganized according
to the decisions of the Reorganization and Disbandment
Conferences,” and in going abroad. “The mountains are
movable but this desire of mine cannot be changed,”
Yen declared. “If you agree with me, I shall immediate-
ly telegraph the Central Government so that orders of
advance may be stayed. One of our ancient sages said:
‘Lay down your sword and you are comparable to the.
Buddha.’ You possess wisdom and will, I am sure, con-
sider my words. I am awaiting your instructions.”

Not since December, 1924, when Marshals Feng and
Chang Tso-lin had engaged in a competition in self-
effacement, had there been such a display of apparent
self-abnegation — and this display of modesty was no
more sincere than the earlier one. There was little evi-
dence to warrant a belief that the sometime Christian
general had a' desire to rival the Buddha. What was
made clear was that the two actual rulers of Northern
China proper were allies, and. that Chiang was check-
mated. Nanking was unprepared, to conquer the war
lords together, and could not have managed their

170

CeiNA'^IN- REVOLUTION.

territories' ^ the moment if they had laid' down their
powers.

There occurred now a pause in the country's chief
occupation to permit the removal of Dr. .Sun's body
from the Pi Yiin-ssu, outside Peking, to its final resting
place in the magnificent mausoleum built by the govern-
ment on Purple Mountain without the walls of Nanking.
The diplomatic representatives of the foreign powers at-
tended the state funeral on June i (1929), thereby con-
tributing added prestige to the national government.
Mme Sun returned from her self-imposed exile to attend
the ceremonies, and was received with due respect. Un-
til her return to Europe in September she publicly
maintained the attitude of criticism of the party, the
government, and Chiang Kai-shek which she had as-
sumed two years earlier on the fall of the Wuhan govern-
ment. She declined to reside in the capital to allow her
prestige to be exploited by the government, and criti-
cized the latter for publishing her name among the mem-
bers of the Central Executive Committee as a means of
deceiving the public; she accused the government of
being nothing more than one composed of militarists
and counter-revolutionists who slaughtered the youth of
the land, oppressed the ‘'starving masses," and bene-
fited officeholders who a few years earlier had been poor
men but who were now riding about in fine motor cars
and purchasing great houses in the foreign settlements
and concessions to hold their concubines. President
Chiang, her brother-in-law, she bitterly accused of be-
traying her husband's last instructions while paying
them lip-service.

The entombment of Dr. Sun's body was followed in

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 171

a few days by the convening of a plenary session of the
recently appointed Central Executive Committee of the
Kuomingtang. Certain of the measures which the
Party Congress had had no time, or will, to consider in
March were taken up, particularly those having to do
with the education of the people in the principles of the
five-power system incorporated in the Organic Law of
October 4, 1928, and the preparation of the people for
local self-government which should equip them for the
third, or constitutional, stage of the revolution. The
disillusionment through which the enthusiasts of 1926-
27 were now passing, the widespread criticism of the
arbitrary actions of the government, the difficulty
experienced in discriminating between the advantages of
the military government at Nanking and those in other
areas of the country to the north, south, and west, and
the uncertainty prevailing on account of the military
situation in the same areas led the Committee to limit
somewhat hesitatingly and apologetically the duration
of the period of tutelage. The six years 1929-35 were
declared to constitute the length of the period, and the
hope — rather than the expectation— was expressed that
this would suffice; failing which “it will augur well
neither for the Party nor for the whole country.”

At the end of June President Chiang went to P’eiping
to attempt to detach Yen from Feng. On the twenty-
first it had been announced that Feng would be al-
located $3,000,000 (silver) for payment of his armies and
$200,000 (silver) to cover the expenses of a trip abroad.
On the twenty-sixth Feng reached Yen’s provincial cap-
ital, Taiyuan, and apparently succeeded in strengthen-
ing the bond with Yen, inasmuch as the latter refused at

172

GHINA. in: .revolution

tlie P'eipiag 'conference to break with him. On July 5 .the
Nanking State Council found it expedient to cancel the
order for Feng's arrest; two days later Marshal Chang
Hsueh-liang arrived from Mukden to confer with Yen
and Chiaiig. On account of external as well as^ internal
factors nothing constructive was accomplished. ■

\ Yhe Kuomingtang has never become deeply rooted in
; the provinces north of the Yangtze as it has in varying
degrees south of the great river. The hold of Chang. Tso-
lin on Peking and the government established there by
him had been essentially artificial and temporary in its
nature. It had collapsed owing to Chang's weakness and
the short-lived formal affiliation of Yen and Feng with
the Kuomingtang rather than because of the part played
by Chiang and the southern Nationalist armies. Nor
has P'eiping ever been reconciled to the loss of prestige
and wealth which it enjoyed as the national capital;
demoted to the position of a provincial capital, it re-
mains irreconcilable. Whatever Kuomingtang influence
there was in this area in 1929 was mainly Reorganiza-
tionist.

While Chang Hsueh-liang had announced allegiance
to Nanking, and was willing to allow the central govern-
ment a voice in determining his foreign policy, he had no
vision of abdicating his position by accepting dictation
in the internal affairs of Manchuria. This, or the turn-
ing-over to him of the control of the northern satrapies
of Yen and Feng, would have been the next logical step
had the two latter war lords been eliminated at this
time. Neither alternative was pleasing to Nanking and
Chiang in 1929. Nor was Chang Hsueh-liang at the
moment prepared to intervene actively in affairs south

173

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31

of the Great Wall as his father had done with disastrous
consequences. It became clear, therefore, that in a war
between Chiang and Feng (and Yen) Chang Hsueh-
liang would play a neutral role such as Feng had played
during the recent Kwangsi fiasco.

Moreover, a struggle with the soviets for control of the
Chinese Eastern Railway had already been begun on
May 27 by police raids on the Russian consulates at
Manchouli, Tsitsihar, Harbin, and Suifenho; on July 10,
while the three generals were closing their conference in
P’eiping, the Chinese Eastern Railroad telegraph and
telephone lines were seized by the Chinese, and various
soviet organizations were closed throughout the railway
zone. On the eleventh the conferees left P’eiping, and
nine days later Nanking broke diplomatic relations with
the soviets. General Blucher, who had been so helpful to
the Nationalists in 1926, was shortly appointed com-
mander of the far eastern forces of the soviets, and in
mid-August he instituted military operations against
his former colleagues in China.'"

For slightly more than two months internal war was
averted, owing in part to the serious state of affairs in
northern Manchuria, and to a degree of uncertainty as
to which of the opponents might win in a resort to arms.
During the third week in September, however, Chang
Fa-k’uei, who had been relatively quiet since his exploits
in Kwangtung at the end of 1927, created a diversion
which was helpful to Feng and the Kuominchun. Chang
and his “Ironsides” were stationed at Ichang; on
being ordered by Nanking to transfer to the Lunghai

^For the course of this external struggle cf. Morse and MacNair, op.
cit.^ chap. XXX ; also Survey of International Affairs ^ 1929, pp. 344-69.

174

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

railway zone, he started instead to advance south
through Hunan to Kwangsi with the object of continu-
ing on to capture Canton. Cashiered by Nanking on the
twenty-first, he immediately received the blessing of
Wang Ching-wei and the left Reorganizationists. Nan-
king answered this defiance on October 3 with an order
for the arrest of the leaders of this group. Chang’s suc-
cesses in the south, which were accompanied in the north
by a declaration early in October of hostilities in Honan
by Feng’s leading general. Sun Liang-chen, and a revolt
on the seventeenth of the month by the military gover-
nor of Anhwei, led Wang Ching-wei, who had recently
returned from Europe, to declare, on November 28, his
intention to establish a Reorganizationist-Kuomingtang
government in Canton. This was delayed by Chang
Fa-k’uei’s defeat early in December which prevented
his capture of Canton.

Late in October President Chiang had personally as-
sumed the leadership of the government forces against
the Kuominchun. Partly by military victories, which
brought Loyang under national control and forced the
Kuominchun to retreat to Shensi; partly, apparently, by
a further customary grant of funds to the enemy; and
partly, it may be, on account of the hostilities with the
Russians in Manchuria the war with the Kuominchun
was temporarily suspended at the end of November.
Before this, however. General Shih Yu-san, whose loy-
alty to Nanking had been purchased by Chiang slightly
over five months earlier, had received a new inspiration
which led him to revolt on October 3, at Pukow, across
the river from Nanking, and attempt the capture of the
national capital. Narrowly failing in this, he seized all

175

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31

available rolling stock, and retreated northward one
hundred miles to Pengpu in Anhwei. The national gov-
ernment barely escaped destruction in this coup.

President Chiang, having closed the campaign against
the Kuominchun, hastened back to Nanking, which was
badly shaken. His equilibrium was further threatened
on December 4 by another mutiny^ — this time in x 4 nking,
the capital of Anhwei, the troops in which joined those
of Shih Yu-san at Pengpu, Simultaneously mutinies
took place at Changchow, seventy-five miles southeast
of Nanking on the railway, and at a point on the north
bank of the Yangtze, across from Wusung. From the
latter point troops marched to the western edge of the
Shanghai International Settlement where they were dis-
armed on the fifteenth. Ten days before this T’ang
Sheng-chih, who had aided the Nationalists in 1926,
been ousted in 1927, and restored to the fold in 1928,
issued a manifesto, conjointly with several northern gen-
erals, denouncing the Nanking government. With ad-
mirable impartiality Wang Ching-wei pontificated for
this movement as he had for that of Chang Fa-k’uei a
few weeks earlier in the south. So imminent appeared
the collapse of Nanking that several vessels of the
British navy appeared off the water front of the capital
to remove foreigners who had returned to their work
here following the settlement of the incident of March,

1927-

The national government survived, owing in part to
the neutrality of Yen Hsi-shan, but mainly, it appeared,
because of Wang Ching-wei ’s support of the unnatural
alliance of T’ang and the northerners; the latter dis-
liked the dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek and his cen-

176

CHINA IN' -REVOLUTION

tralization schemes for the national government but
they hesitated as yet to contaminate themselves with
the radicalism of Wang and his southern Reorganiza-
tionists. On December 12 that part of the Kuomingtang
in control at Nanking solemnly expelled Wang Ching-
wei from the party^, and six days later President Chiang
announced the confusion of all his3 and his govern-
ment’s, enemies. On the twenty-first Marshals Yen and
Chang Hsueh-liang formally declared their loyalty to
Nanking and their willingness to participate in the
restoration of order. Marshal Feng for the time con-
tented himself with following the precedent of B’rer
Rabbit in a pinch, that of lying low and saying nothing.

That neither Yen nor Feng were spent forces and that
Nanking was to have merely a breathing period between
bouts with both north and south became evident within
two months. Late in February, 1930, rumors became
current of renewed activity on the part of the Yen-Feng
armies. Early in the following month the Kuominehun
armies began moving again into Honan to seize Kaifeng.
On April 3 Yen broke with Nanking by assuming the
post of commander-in-chief of the northern antigovern-
ment coalition, having previously taken over control of
the wireless station in P’eiping and the northern end of
the P’eiping-Hankow Railway, and announced his de-
termination to take over the customs administration at
Tientsin. Feng was to be Yen’s deputy while Wang
Ching-wei was now recognized by Yen as the legal head
of the Kuomingtang. A promise was made that the
northern government-designate would call a people’s
convention such as Dr. Sun had advocated. Nanking
immediately denounced Yen for his perfidy and ordered

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 ^ 177

his arrest, but did not attempt to enforce its order. The
establishment of a rival government at P’eiping was
made manifest by the opening, on May i, of the offices
of the old ministry of foreign affairs in the former
capital. Wang Ching-wei did not leave Hongkong to co-
operate with the new P’eiping government until mid-
summer, being as hesitant, it appeared, to ally himself
with the northerners as the northerners had been a few
months earlier to ally themselves with him.

After weeks of hesitation and preparation Nanking
opened its campaign early in May with an attack on
Chengchow, in eastern Honan. For more than five
months the struggle went on with the most severe fight-
ing that modern China has witnessed. .A.t the outset the
northern coalition appeared to enjoy the advantage,
profiting by the irresponsible and arbitrary actions of
the which had rendered the Nanking Kuoming

tang abhorrent to most of the northerners. President
Chiang himself was personally disliked on account of his
powerful position and his policies, and was hampered by
the renewal of military hostilities in the south where the
Kwangsi faction and Chang Fa-k’uei’s “Ironsides” were
campaigning and the Communists were expanding their
power in Kiangsi and southern Hupeh. Late in June
Tsinan fell to the northerners. But superiority in pres-
tige, funds, arms, and munitions lay with Nanking, and
in mid-August its armies retook the Shantung capital.
At the end of August Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang, who
had refused to join a government set up by his father’s
old enemies, let it be known that he would intervene;
this he did three weeks later, taking over Tientsin and
P’eiping. Before announcing his decision, however, the

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

178

young marshal had been promised control of the ports
north of the Shantung peninsula, which meant that he
was now ready to attempt the rule of the northeastern
provinces of China proper along with his four Man-
churian provinces. By the middle of September the
rout of the northerners was in full swing, and, on
October 13, President Chiang announced the conclusion
of another victorious campaign.

The severity of the fighting during the summer of
1930 against Yen and Feng was manifested by the esti-
mate of the Nanking generalissimo that he had suffered
90,000 casualties and his opponents 150,000.

Marshal Yen now had the opportunity to put into
effect his plans of the preceding year for travel abroad —
having mulcted his province of Shansi, it was charged,
of $80,000,000 (silver) during his twenty years of ad-
ministration. The charge may or may not be true, but
if it were true it may be said in his defense that he had
given peace and good government to his province such
as no other had enjoyed during the “republican” period.
He withdrew at the end of the year to Dairen, and later
crossed to Japan.

Marshal Feng, still unwilling to seek comparison to
the Buddha, announced no plans for withdrawal from
the troubled scenes of his influence but withdrew most
of his loyal forces to his barren, but relatively inac-
cessible, stronghold, Shensi. Mr. Wang Ching-wei, fol-
lowed a rift between his own left-wing followers and the
Reorganizationists under Ch’en Kung-po, started forth
upon still another pilgrimage to Europe.

The dissolution of the rival government at P’eiping,
and the flight of Wang Ching-wei, had a depressing

NATIONALIST CfflNA, 1928-31

\

179

effect on the Kwangsi-“Ironsides” rebellion in the south.
In keeping with his policy of proclaiming a political
amnesty and of bringing peace to the distracted country.
President Chiang, in October, deputized General Ma
Shao-chun, a native of Kwangsi who was a councilor to
the national army headquarters, to go south to attempt
a settlement by diplomacy. Not without difficulty, ow-
ing to the ambitions and jealousies of the Kwangsi
militarists who persisted in guerrilla warfare, were the
latter and President Chiang’s representative able to
come to an understanding. Late in January, 1921, how-
ever, General Ma returned to Nanking in company with
General Huang Shao-hung, the governor of Kwangsi,
and General Chen Chi-tang, commander of the Kwang-
tung military forces, and plans were immediately formed
for the rehabilitation of Kwangsi and Kwangtung, in-
cluding the taking-over of the “Ironsides” by a govern-
ment general, as soon as Generals Li Tsung-jen, Pai
Ch’ung-hsi, and Chang Fa-k’uei could be persuaded to
travel abroad. But the latter were as satisfied to remain
in their native land as was Feng Yu-hsiang. While Li re-
mained neutral, Pai and Chang seized the opportunity
presented by Huang’s absence in Nanking, to seize his
capital, Nanning, and set up a new provincial govern-
ment. Huang returned to the south a month later, hav-
ing received Nanking’s promise of $5,000,000 (silver) for
rehabilitation — of which sum he had brought with him
$1,500,000. With such means of persuasion it was mis-
takenly assumed that Huang would be able to win over
the recalcitrants.

In the meantime, as a result of the participation of
Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang in the crushing of the Yen-

i8o

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Feng rebellion, an understanding between him and
President Chiang had been made which bade fair to
work for the interests of the country, if it were main-
tained. The most skeptical admitted the likelihood of its
lasting a year; others, more hopeful, believed that with
Chang Hsueh-liang’s appointment as vice-commander-
in-chief of the Nationalist army, navy, and air force
with the charge of reorganizing China north of the Yel-
low River, and with a closer alignment of the four
Manchurian provinces with Nanking, a permanent
peace between the two outstanding military leaders of
the country was possible. Together the two can prevent
Feng Yu-hsiang from breaking the peace and should be
able to control the Kwangsi generals. If the more opti-
mistic interpretation be accepted, it may then be argued
that the last civil war between the country’s old and
new militarists has been fought. This does not, of
course, preclude the inevitable struggle between the na-
tional government and the Communists, whose power
and influence appear to have been steadily increasing
since the fall of the Borodin-Wuhan government in 1927.

In mid-November (13-18) Marshal Chang Hsueh-
liang, who was shortly appointed to membership in the
Central Political Council, and President Chiang Kai-
shek participated in the Fourth Plenary Session of the
Central Executive Committee of the Kuomingtang
which considered certain problems of reconstruction
ignored by the Party Congress of March, 1929. Follow-
ing a vigorous and most un-Chinese denunciation by the
president of slothfulness and corruption within the
party, and of the tyranny of the local branches of the
Kuomingtang, plans were made for the implementing

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 ^ 181

of the Control Yuan in the government which has for its
objects the impeachment of corrupt and inefficient
officials and the auditing of governmental accounts. The
latter function will be carried out, it is planned, through
an auditing ministry which will have departments in the
provinces as well as in the capital. Among the com-
mittees appointed to investigate and classify the topics
submitted for consideration of the Central Executive
Committee were those for political, military, educa-
tional, and economic affairs. It was agreed that the cen-
tral, provincial, and district governments should submit
budgets and render reports of their income and expendi-
tures, and that the finances should be reorganized, and
foreign and domestic loans liquidated. Plans were laid
down for the suppression of communism, banditry, and
opium.

One of the means now adopted for the improvement
of conditions in the many thousands of villages, in
which practically the whole non-urban element in China
lives, is that of the pao-chia. This is a system under
which the inhabitants of a village are to be held re-
sponsible collectively for the misdeeds of any of their
number who may personally flee from punishment. Like
the examination and the control Yuan, it is a return in
essence to the doctrine of responsibility which long ap-
plied under the empire. Through the official hierarchy
and the entire social system— from the Son of Heaven
who, on occasion, assumed responsibility for the effects
of the forces of nature, to the head of a family — someone
was responsible, and punishable, for every illegal action
or unfortunate incident which might occur through the
length and breadth of the empire.

y ■ ■

182 ^ CHINA IN REVOLUTION

The reorganization of the army and the dissolution
of the Disbandment and Reorgamzation Committee^
so that the army may be directly controlled by the
commander-in-chief; the improvement of land and
water communications; the abolition of likin by Janu-
ary ly 1931; the mass education of the people for par-
ticipation in local government and their preparation for
the third stage of the revolution; the abolition of the
existing provinces and the substitution therefor of some
seventy new ones, calculated to minimize the dangers of
feudal regionalism and militarism from which the coun-
try has suffered so greatly since 1912; the setting-aside
in Nanking of a legation area so that the foreign diplo-
mats may move from the old capital to the new; re-
organization of provincial and district party head-
quarters and the definite limitation of their powers with
a view to subordinating them in reality to Nanking; the
bringing of education under further control of the party
so that it may serve as the handmaid of the government
in inculcating the principles of the Kuomingtang, of
physical culture, and of natural science among the
youth of the land; and the economic rehabilitation of
the country along various lines, including river con-
servancy, afforestation, the opening and development
of new ports, and the solution of the agrarian problem —
all these were among the problems discussed at the
November Plenary Session of the Central Executive
Committee/ The land problem was of special signifi-
cance in the light of communistic developments in the
central and southern provinces.

^ Cf. E. B. S. Lee, “Fourth Plenary Session/ North China Herald^
CLXXVII, No. 3303 (November 25, 1930), 282.

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 ' 183

Possibly the most important resolution adopted at the
Session was that submitted by President Chiang and
Messrs. Hu Han-min, Tai Chi-t’ao, Yu Yu-jen, and Ting
Wei-fen which called for the opening of a National
People’s Convention in Nanking in May, 1931. This
decision was due in part, undoubtedly, to the similar
action taken by the northern rulers in the preceding
summer, and in part to the desire of President Chiang
to strengthen the government and, possibly, his own
position therein. The details involved were left to be
worked out by the Standing Committee of the Central
Executive Committee. The acceptance of the proposal
was a personal triumph for President Chiang, as was the
entire session of the Committee, despite the occasional
opposition of Mr. Hu Han-min. It was a definite step
toward the legitimization and stabilization of the central
government and the party group in power; it presented
an opportunity to appeal to the country on the basis of
Dr. Sun’s plans for such a convention when the country
should have been united under the Kuomingtang. Com-
ing as it did after the expulsion of Wang Ching-wei and
the collapse of the Yen-Feng coalition, it foreshadowed
the indefinite rule of President Chiang and his colleagues
at Nanking.

On February 28, 1931, a conference was held in the
capital to prepare the agenda for the People’s Conven-
tion. This was composed of the president, the heads of
Yuan, the government ministers, and others. President
Chiang proposed that the People’s Convention in May
should consider the promulgation of the provisional
constitution which Dr. Sun had advocated for the
period prior to the adoption of the permanent constitu-

y

184 ' CHINA IN' REVOLUTION

tion of the third period. Unfortunately the founder of
the Kuomingtang had implied that the provisional con-
stitution should not go into force until local self-govern-
ment had been established throughout the country.
This was seized upon by Hu Han-min, the president of
the Legislative Yuan, as a ground for opposition. He
argued that the country was not ready for provisional
constitutional rule. Neither Chiang nor Hu would give
way; the result was the resignation of Hu from the
presidency of the legislative Yuan and his concurrent
governmental and party positions. This was accepted
by Chiang, who also ordered Hu’s personal detention in
Nanking lest he withdraw to join an anti governmental
faction, ‘Thus destroying his prestige and long record
of faithfulness to the revolutionary cause,” — as Chiang
himself formally stated on March 9.

It appears that the break between the two men was
not a sudden one. The death of T’an Yen-k’ai, the
president of the Executive Yuan in 1929, had left Hu in
a position in government and party circles second only
to that held by Chiang, and it has been suggested that
he had aspirations toward supplanting Chiang in the
leadership of both. Shortly before the break Hu had
come out strongly in favor of a suggested loan to the
Nanking government of one million ounces of silver by
the American government which he declared would en-
able the government to stabilize finances and enter upon
the economic reconstruction of the country. In taking
this stand Hu appears not to have consulted with his
colleagues, or to have defied them in so doing. He had
earlier criticized the government for the enormous ex-
penditures involved in the northern campaign of 1930,

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 ' 185

and had later, it is said, opposed Chiang’s plans for a
general political amnesty and forced him to modify them
in some degree.

Many feared that the promulgation of a provisional
constitution would strengthen the executive branch of
the government at the expense of the legislative, and en-
hance the personal prestige and power of Chiang. It is
apparent, therefore, that the break between the two
chiefs at Nanking symbolized a recrudescence of two
principles which have played a part throughout a con-
siderable period of the revolution, namely, personal jeal-
ousy and the struggle between the executive and legisla-
tive branches.

On March 1 President Chiang issued a formal state-
ment vindicating his stand and criticizing Hu’s posi-
tion: “We have had to pass through many years of
bloodshed, many of our comrades have paid the supreme
sacrifice and untold millions of our people have suffered
in order that a People’s Conference may be called for
paving the way for the establishment of lasting peace
and prosperity. . . . . What are Mr. Hu’s intentions
that he arbitrarily rejects the right of the people to hold
a national convention to discuss the question of a pro-
visional constitution? Is it not clear that without a peo-
ple’s convention and a provisional constitution, the
Legislative Yuan would continue to have sole power and
authority to make and unmake laws during the period
of political tutelage? If this spirit is tolerated, the spirit
of the people’s convention would be lost and the sacri-
fices of the party and nation during the last few years
rendered in vain.”

Undiscouraged by the retirement of Hu Han-min, the

i86

r

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Standing Committee of the Central Executive Com-
mittee immediately appointed a Constitutional Drafting
Committee. This was composed of Wu Tze-hui (Ching-
heng), a native of Kiangsu, one of the elder statesmen
of the Kuomingtang, sometimes described as an “intel-
lectual anarchist,” who had opposed communism in the
192.5-27 period, and had supported Chiang after his
break with Wuhan in 1927; Ting Wei-fen, a native of
Shantung, a prominent member of the Central Execu-
tive Committee, and a member of the Shantung pro-
vincial government since 1928; Wang Ch’ung-hui, the
distinguished legal authority, delegate in 1921 to the
League of Nations Assembly, and to the Washington
Conference, also a deputy-judge of the Permanent Court
of International Justice; Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei, a native of
Chekiang, sometime chancellor of Peking National Uni-
versity and a member of the State Council since 1928;
Shao Yuan-ch’ung, also a native of Chekiang, private
secretary to Dr. Sun (1916-18), since 1928 a member of
the legislative Yuan, since 1929 a member of the Cen-
tral Executive Committee; Liu Lu-yun, a native of
Kiangsi, member of the legislative Yuan since 1928 and
of the Central Executive Committee since 1929; Shao
Li-tzu, a native of Chekiang, a member of the Central
Supervisory Committee since 1926, and chief secretary
to Chiang Kai-shek since 1927; Yeh Ch’u-ts’ang, a na-
tive of Kiangsu, since 1929 a member of the Central
Executive Committee and Central Political. Council;
and H. H. Kung, a native of Shansi, minister of indus-
try, labor, and commerce since 1928, sometime a mem-
ber of the Central Executive Committee and Central Po-

NATIONALIST CHINA, 1928-31 f 187

litical Council, and a brother-in-law to Dr. Sun and
Chiang Kai-shek.

Among other matters discussed by the delegates to
the People’s Convention were the abolition of dictator-
ships and the establishment of republican government,
the carrying to completion of Dr. Sun’s reconstruction
plans, and the abolition of the special rights and posi-
tion of foreigners in China. The effects of the break be-
tween President Chiang and Hu Han-min and the out-
come of the People’s Convention remain to be observed.

f

CHAPTER XII

THE HAMMER AND SICKLE vs. THE
TWELVE-POINTED STAR

D espite the attention generally paid to the
principles and organization of the Kuoming-
tang and the national government at Nan-
king, it remains a matter of doubt in the summer of 1931
whether the symbol of these, or that of the Communists,
is ultimately to mark the flag of China. In 1912, the
dragon flag of the Manchus gave place to the five-barred
flag of the republic; in 1927 the latter was supplanted
by the twelve-pointed star of the Kuomingtang and the
Nationalists. That the rulers at Nanking fear the ham-
mer and sickle of the Communists was made abundant-
ly clear by President Chiang Kai-shek when, in his
opening address before the Fourth Plenary Session of the
Central Executive Committee in November, 1930, he
listed the Communists first among the enemies of the
government.

Asked in the summer of 1927, when the Wuhan-soviet
government was in process of dissolution, what the next
development would be, Borodin replied: “The revolu-
tion must go underground.” He was correct in part: the
Communists went underground to the extent that a
complete break between them and the Nationalists fol-
lowed; but from that day to the present there has been
no hesitation on the part of the Communists, and no
intermission in the development of their campaign.

188

THE SICKLE sj. THE STAR , 189

Directly and indirectly, above as well as under ground,
they have harried the people and the somewhat shadowy
national government through considerable parts of Cen-
tral and Southern China. Honan, Hupeh, Hunan,
Kiangsi, Anhwei, Fukien, and Kwangtung have been the
objects of their special attention, but no part of the
country can be claimed to have been unaffected by the
Communists, Russian and Chinese. Some two hundred
thousand square miles in the heart of the country, in-
habited by at least fifty millions of people, have been
directly affected.

Since first the soviets turned their attention to the Far
East in 1919, discussion has been rife among foreigners
in China and the Chinese themselves concerning the fit-
ness of China as a field for Communist effort.^ The con-
sensus of opinion for a decade was that for four reasons,
chiefly, communism could not succeed among the
Chinese. Historically, the rule for eighteen years (1068-
85) in the eleventh century of the socialist prime min-
ister, Wang Ngan-shih, his fall from power, and the un-
doing of his work were cited as precedent against a
twentieth-century appeal to communism. Second, the
fact that China has barely witnessed the birth of indus-
trialism, and has but a small urban industrial prole-
tariat, has made it appear that Marx’s prerequisite — a
fully developed industrial society- — for communism is
lacking. China is overwhelmingly, probably 80 per cent,
an agricultural country in which class consciousness has
been conspicuously lacking. The peasants, it has been

^Cf,, e.g., H, F. MacNair, ‘‘Combating Bolshevism in China/’ China's
International Relations and Other Essays (Shanghai: The Commercial PresSj
1926), pp. 158-69.

190 f CHINA IN revolution;:;;:,;::;::'^

declared by non-peasan have few needs^ no national
or 'patriotic outlook, and are essentially conseryative:
and content/ Moreover, the conditions of landowner-
ship in Russia prior to 1917 were different from those
commonly prevailing in China. In the latter it was esti-
mated a few years ago that 90 per cent of the peasants
own the lands they cultivate and, it was opined, they
would never support the nationalization of their hold-
ings in order to carry out the theories of alien Com-
munists. Finally, it has often been claimed that the unit
of the Chinese social system, the patriarchal family, is
sui generis unalterably opposed to the radical theories
and practices of European Communists.

These arguments are interesting but, in the light of
developments in China during the past two decades,
they deserve to be considered as hypotheses rather than
as axioms. With reference to the example of Wang
Ngan-shih, it may be suggested that precedents as such
are less compelling in contemporary China than they
were in the nineteenth century, and that the groups to
whom communism presents an appeal are either not
well informed on conditions prevailing eight centuries
ago, as in the case of the peasantry, or anxious to make
a complete break with their country's past, as in the
case of young ‘hntellectuar' radicals who have little to
lose by the overturn of an ancient system of social organ-
ization which has cramped them mentally and eco-
nomically.

Concerning the second argument it is to be noted that
Russia in 1917 was not much farther along the road of
industrialization than is China, but that that lack did
not prevent the inauguration of a system of government

THE SICKLE pj. THE STAR j 191

in Russia which has lasted close to a decade and a half
and which shows little sign of passing away. Commu-
nism was not established, nor has it been maintained, in
Russia on a foundation of the people’s will. It was the
imposition of a system of thought and government by a
zealous and ruthless minority who used methods which
the Nationalists copied in China; the membership of the
Kuomingtang, it is to be noted again, includes approxi-
mately one in one thousand of the population. The will
of a few men acting with decision is stronger than the
apathy of the masses in any country. It is worthy of re-
membrance, moreover, that Lenin himself veered away,
at least temporarily, from Marxian ideology when he de-
clared in 1920: “One must abandon scientific prejudices
that each country must pass through capitalistic ex-
ploitation; the power of the Soviets .... can be estab-
lished in those countries in which capitalist development
has not attained any serious proportions.”’' Nor should
Trotsky’s dictum in his Defense of Terrorism be forgot-
ten: “Revolution is founded on intimidation — it kills
individuals, it intimidates thousands. Thus a conscious
minority dynamically converts itself into a majority by
slaying its main opponents and terrorizing the rest.”“

That China is overwhelmingly agricultural — probably
85 per cent— is indisputable, but that 90 per cent of the
peasants are landowners is subject to doubt. Statistics
in China for practically all native institutions are con-
siderably less conspicuous than are generalizations,

^ Quoted by M. T. Price, “Communist Policy and the Chinese Nationalist
Revolution,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

guesses^ and rumors. Conditions vary greatly from
province to provincej and even within one province.
Nevertheless^ a competent foreign observer of conditions
in Eiangsi and Hunan a few years ago estimated after;
careful research that 75 per cent of the peasants were
tenants of absentee landlords.^ In some parts of North-
ern China more than three-fourths of the farms are said
to be owned by the workers, but in considerable areas of
the east-central provinces less than 50 per cent are
tenant owned. The farms are small— slightly over five
acres on the average — and, owing to population pres-
sure, there is less than one acre for the support of each
individual. The average income per member of a farmer
family, exclusive of house rent, is approximately $2.30
(gold)."

To argue that under these basic conditions the people
of any country, Oriental or Occidental, can be content
appears erroneous. When, however, the passage of
armies and bandit gangs back and forth across the
country, who seize the crops or prevent sowing and
harvesting, who impress into unpaid service all able-
bodied men who do not flee their clutches, who rape the
women or carry them ofF, and who plunder and often
burn the villages, are taken into account, still more il-
logical does such reasoning appear. When, in addition,
the high degree of provincial autonomy under oft-
changing war lords who collect the taxes many years in

^ Cf. E. Hunter, “The Seriousness and Extent of the Red i^rmies,” China
Weekly Reviei^^ LV, No. 9 (January 31, 1931), 3:2 2-2 5.

2J. L. Buck, “Agriculture and the Future of China,'' Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science^ CLII (November, 1930),

THE SICKLE w. THE STAR

193

advance is taken into account, one can understand why
the peasants of China may lend attentive ears to the
promises of Communist agents.

Under the conditions prevailing in vast areas of China
the common people are easily persuaded that they have
nothing to lose by a change in political philosophy and
social organization, and are not prone to inquire whether
the Communists can make good their promises.

As for the opposition of the patriarchal family to
change, it may be remarked that this unit of society was
under fire long before the overthrow of either the
Manchus or the Romanovs. For more than a century
the impact of the West upon the Far East has been
acutely felt through both physical and non-physical
channels. Modern education, and Christianity itself,
sapped the foundation of China’s ancient social system
before ever Western industrialism rooted itself in the
country. If communism had not been introduced, the
“big family” must have given way to the “small,” owing
to the exigencies of the modernizing influences of inter-
national intercourse, particularly that of industrializa-
tion. Communism is merely an additional factor of dis-
integration. In old China a largely autochthonous cul-
ture flowered and came to fruition. Under no conditions
could it have remained static since natural law func-
tions in the East as well as in the West; stagnation has
always been a matter of degree rather than of essence.
That the patriarchal family is opposed to communism
is, therefore, of no permanent significance whatever,
there being quite as many non-Communist Chinese
liberals who are opposed to it as there are Communist.

Before the consummation of the entente between Dr.

194 ' CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Sun and M. JofFe in 1923, there were Communists in
China; following it, the latter grew rapidly in number.
Hitherto they had been mainly intellectual theorists
playing with an idea; following their admission to Kuo-
mitigtang membership they became practical to a degree
and as zealous as the proponents of a new religion. Their
appeal was directed to the agricultural peasantry in the
southern provinces and to the urban proletariat of the
ancient handicraft guilds and the modern native and
foreign factories of a few partially modernized cities
and treaty ports. The working conditions in the
latter were no worse- — in fact, they were generally better
— than in the former. The opportunity for propaganda
is better in the modern industrial units, however, owing
to the employment in them of larger numbers of labor-
ers who have, in many cases, left their ancestral village
homes to live in tenements near their work. The con-
servative influence of family heads cannot easily make
itself felt in the floating population of a modern indus-
trial center. The fact that a considerable number of
China’s modern mills are foreign owned has rendered it
easy for agitators to stir up enmity on an antiforeign
basis.

Two important factors in the Communist movement
cannot be discussed with any degree of precision — name-
ly, the exact relationship of the Chinese Communists
with Russia since 1927, and the percentage of ordinary
bandits participating in the rebellions as contrasted with
actual converts to communism. Some of those involved
appear, indeed, to fall into neither category since it is
clear that many have joined both bandits and Com-
munists against their wilL Once in, however, it is all but

THE SICKLE w. THE STAR

195

impossible to withdraw, owing to the prevalence of
avengers and blackmailers. Escape is possible for a few,
but for most the only process of legitimization is the
somewhat hazardous one of an army’s being bought
over en masse hj the government as an easy, but not
always successful, method of squashing rebellion. In the
case of the Communists, however, the buying of troops
has chiefly been on the side of the rebels since, being
cut off generally from the sea, they are dependent for
arms and munitions mainly on defeated or disloyal
government troops.

There appear to have been few or no Russians among
the Chinese Communists since the Wuhan and Canton
debacles of 1927. Many of the leaders are young Chinese,
some fairly well-educated ones, who have had no train-
ing abroad but who have felt the need for revolutionary
changes in the social system of their country, and have
accepted the philosophy and the promises of Moscow as
constituting a basis for change. The ruthlessness of
Trotsky’s methodology has appealed to them strongly,
as has been manifested in the atrocious acts of cruelty
perpetrated by them on foreign and native members of
the capitalist-bourgeois class. Without attempting to
differentiate between brigands and Communists, which
under prevailing conditions, is impossible, mention may
be made of the looting and burning of Changsha, the
capital of Hunan, in the summer of 1930; the holding in
captivity for two and a half months of two English
women missionaries in Fukien, during the same summer,
and their execution under horrible circumstances on
September 20; and the execution, after torture, of the
Nationalist general, Chang Huei-chan, at Kian, a Com-

196 ^ CHINA IN REVOLUTION

munist stronghold in west-central Kiangsi, in January,

I93I- _ : , :

The correspondent oi the North China Herald in
Nanchang, Kiangsi, reported the death of General
Chang, under date of February 18, as follows:

xAiCcording to the information which the writer has secured from
soldi ers and officers of the i8th Division .... General Chang Huei-
chan was first well treated by the Red leaders, for they hoped that
he would surrender and fight for them. But their offer was turned
down and he began to suffer torture. At first a big hole was cut
through his upper lip and he was then made to crawl on the ground
confessing his crimes as a General of the Central Government. As he
attempted to defend himself and argue with the Red leaders, his
tongue was immediately ordered to be cut out. Finally his head was
chopped off with an old-fashioned axe and his body was burned
with Chinese yellow paper and kerosene oil. [Later] a soldier of the
77th Division .... found a big piece of board on which there was a
human head wrapped with red cloth with the two ears nailed firmly,
floating on the river near Kian. On the board also a few sentences
written in Chinese saying, “This is General Chang Huei-chan of the
1 8th Division and an example for the leaders of the government to
whom we shall do the same.”^

Innumerable other examples of kidnapping or murders,
or both, of Chinese and foreigners, and the destruction
of their property might be given, only the most pic-
turesque of which are ordinarily reported in the press of
Western countries.

Foreign missionaries residing in the interior (it is to
be remembered that, with the exception of the diplo-
mats in Peking or Nanking, all other foreign nationals
are restricted to residence in the treaty ports with the
right to travel only in the interior) and Chinese Chris-
tians have been the object of special attention by the
Communists, since the former are regarded as the agents

* CLXXVIII, No. 3317 (March 3, 1931), 287.

THE SICKLE w. THE STAR

197

of “imperialism” and the latter are the “runTiing dogs of
the imperialists.” Communism is avowedly opposed to
religion as “an opiate for the people,” to quote the
phrase of Marx and Lenin. Bandits as such pursue for-
eign nationals mainly for economic reasons, as a source
of replenishment for their exchequers. The Commu-
nists, on the other hand, attack Christian missionaries
and Chinese converts as representatives of religious and
political systems which are their unbending foes. Chris-
tianity is the object of special attention not only because
it is a religion, but because it is the most virile religion
in contemporary China and because of its intimate rela-
tion with the “bourgeois” powers of the West. Commu-
nism under Lenin’s leadership and interpretation de-
veloped a Mohammedan-like propensity for appeal to
all peoples, regardless of race and color, and particularly
to those in a condition of servitude. The treaty basis of
Christianity in nineteenth- and twentieth-century China
has rendered it peculiarly vulnerable to the criticism
of the Communists. Since it is, in addition, supported
and led largely by nationals of England, France, and
the United States, the Red Terror has made it an object
of special opprobrium. If Christian missions can be de-
stroyed, and the missionaries expelled, a great step for-
ward will have been taken by the Russian and Chinese
Communists, and to that extent the country will have
been prepared to accept the doctrines of Moscow.

If Russians have not personally participated in the
Communist campaigns since 1927, they have by no
means been indifferent to their course. There had been
too much preparation for bringing China into the Rus-
sian fold, and the country is too important, as a base for

198

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

world-revolution and as a stronghold for capitalist in-
vestment, to be easily relinquished. In 1920 the Second
Congress of the International approved the entrance of
Communists into non-Communist parties when the
former were not strong enough to stand alone. In the
same year a Congress of Oriental Nations, in which
China was represented, was convened in Baku, and the
Third, or Communist, International was encouraged to
persevere in the East by the appointment of a propa-
ganda committee. Two years later the International
convened, at Moscow, the First Congress of the Toilers
of the Far East; this had for its object the completion and
application of the policies of the Congress of Oriental
Nations. A Communist university of the Toilers of the
Orient was now established for formal technical training
of laborer propagandists. In 1925 another institution,
the Sun Yat-sen University, was founded in Moscow for
students of a higher class and grade. In Leningrad,
Irkutsk, and other Russian cities, also, Communist edu-
cational institutions were opened to Chinese. To attend
such schools hundreds of Chinese left their country as
others had done, and were still doing, for Japanese,
American, and Western European institutions. In the
meantime the soviet ambassador, Karakhan, had been
propagandizing in the National University of Peking
and other schools and colleges there, and Communist
colleges and ''universities’' had been springing up in
Shanghai and elsewhere, and Borodin had helped organ-
ize at Canton a Political Training Institute.^ In all these
centers of Communist learning large numbers of Chinese

^ Cf. e.g., A. N. Holcombe, The Chinese Revolution^ pp. 163-65, 173-74;
also The China Year Book (1928), pp. 1316-17,

THE SICKLE dj. THE STAR

199

received training in theory and propaganda-^technique
which fitted the more able ones for revolutionary leader-
ship. The almost four years’ residence of Borodin in
China gave him and his Russian colleagues an oppor-
tunity to appeal to the growing numbers of urban prole-
tarians and to the too generally oppressed peasants^ to
young student enthusiasts who were disillusioned by the
repeated failures of attempts to establish sound parlia-
mentary or presidential republican government and the
continued dictation of war lords who accomplished
nothing constructive, to the soldiers and sailors who are
mere pawns in the war game, and to the 'hnteilectuals”
who were critical of, and already rebelling against, the
age-old social system of the country which seemed to
blight and obstruct all modern liberal thought and
institutions. The appeal to class consciousness was a
clarion call such as had never before been made to ail
those who travailed and were heavy laden and to those
who sympathized with the burden-bearers. It is not to
be expected that such influence can pass immediately,
especially as the source of communism was far from
being exhausted at the time of the breaks of 1927. The
continued residence of Chinese students at Moscow, and
the return of others to China to apply their theories, has
clearly demonstrated this fact. Nor should Mme Sun’s
pilgrimage to Moscow in 1927, her continued opposition
to the Nationalists, and her scorching denunciations of
them in 1927 and 1929 be forgotten.

The continued interest of the soviets in the spread of
communism in China, and their interpretation of events
there, are witnessed inter alia by contemporaneous re-
ports in the soviet press. The Moscow Pravda^ the official

200

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

organ of the Communist party, and the most authorita-
tive journal of the soviet capital, in its issue of March
28, 1931, contains an editorial entitled “In the Field of
Class Struggles.” It begins by pointing out the enor-
mous “class feats” which have occurred in various coun-
tries as a result of the deepening of the crisis in capital-
istic countries, and discusses in contrast the enormous
successes of socialistic construction in the Soviet Union.
The bourgeois counter-revolutionists are declared to be
mobilizing for a decisive struggle against (i) their own
proletariat in each country; (a) the nationalistic liberat-
ing movements in colonies — for example, China; (3) the
soviets. Against the bourgeois the masses are rising in
revolution, it is pointed out, and, developing this thought,
the editorial refers to “the strikes, the increasing sweep
of the movement of the unemployed, the rise of the
revolutionary movement in the colonies, and, in par-
ticular, the setting up of Soviets and of the Red Army
in broad regions of China.” The process of “boring from
within,” which the Communists have used for more than
a decade, and which was officially — although, perhaps,
not entirely wittingly — permitted by the Russian-
advised Kuomingtang from January, 1924, to the sum-
mer of 1927, has brought results in the “broad regions”
referred to by the Pravda editorial.

Three days after the appearance of the Pravda edi-
torial, Mr. Al. Hamadan dispatched from Shanghai an
interesting article to the Young Communist Pravda
under the caption “The Rickshaw [Man] with a Rifle.”
This appeared in the issue for April 16. After referring
to the victory of Nanking over the Yen-Feng coalition
of 1930, he set out to report the results of Nanking’s

THE SICKLE sj . THE STAR 201

“boastfully announced Three Months’ ?lan for the
Extirpation of the Communists” in three hundred
regions under Red control in Kiangsi, Hunan, Hupeh,
and other provinces. Chiang Kai-shek’s well-armed
Kuominchun and Nanking troops were estimated at five
hundred thousand. To face these the Red soldiers were
declared to have one rifle for every four or five men, in
spite of which, aided by tens of thousands of coolies,
rickshaw men, and other workmen, and hundreds of
thousands of peasants, they succeeded in repulsing the
government armies. “The Chinese proletariat rose to
defend with its chest its own army.” Sarcastic allusions
were made to President Chiang’s speeches on the “bril-
liant feats” of his troops who had not, at the time the
speeches were given, met the Red army, but merely
peasant detachments acting as scouts, who were re-
ported by the national government as “enormous de-
tachments” numbering eight to ten thousand. “Expen-
sive banquets in Nanking, Shanghai, and Hankow” were
described as being given in honor of “the stalwart leader
of the liquidation of the Communists,” and the “pathos
of congratulatory speeches by imperialists, and the
lightning flashes of newspaper editorials, and telegrams”
which were suddenly replaced by a “period of silence,”
were ironically commented upon. Then, suddenly, “ban-
quets lost their splendor and the imperialists retreated
to cruisers which were waiting. Nothing was heard of
events at the front. Censorship, police, and troops cruel-
ly fought against any news of the actual state of affairs
which might get through, and it turned out that the
Chinese Red army had abandoned the tactic of retreat,
of temporary withdrawal to gather force, and had passed

202

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

' ■#>■■■■

to the tactic of lightning 4 ike attacks of a guerrilla type.
The generals in their panic began to demand that
Chiang Kai-shek appear in person at the front To inspire
the army/ The army in fact needed inspiration. The
soldiersj looked upon as cannon fodder by the generals^
hungry and in rags, seeing no end to the fights of the
generals, sent to destroy their own brothers— workmen
and peasants — took the only proper road, and, in whole
detachments, went over to the side of the Red army,
taking with them their arms, their gatling guns, and
even artillery.’’

In the same article accounts were given of the part
being played by women in the Chinese Communist
movement. While many have organized to give medical
and other types of aid to the Red army, others such as
Ho En and Ho Siang-ku, two sisters of the notorious Ho
Lung, are reported to be at the head of fighting forces.
The younger of these women. Ho En, is said to have led
eight thousand Communists to drive out government
troops from two cities in northwestern Hunan and
southwestern Hupeh, respectively, and to have aided
in the organization of a soviet government in an area
with a population of from four to five millions. Else-
where it is declared that the Reds, having destroyed the
‘Three Months’ Plan,” are now preparing for a general
offensive.

In the issue of the same journal for April 25 (1931)
the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Executive Com-
mittee of the Communist International at Moscow was
reported. The most important successes of the sections
of the International during the past year were sum-
marized under eight headings. Of these the first listed is

THE SICKLE w. THE STAR

203

the creation of soviets and a Red army ir? China, and
the assumption of leadership of the Communist party
in the peasant revolution of China and Indo-China. In
the Presidium, thirty in number, two Chinese and a
Japanese are listed; of the former, Koo An-ping is one of
the thirteen members of the political secretariat, which
directs the policy of the Communist International.

The stress laid upon the peasant-agrarian aims of the
revolution in all reports by the Moscow press of develop-
ments in China, Indo-China, and India is extremely
significant. By this means the lack of readiness of most
of Asia for the Marxian revolution of the proletariat is
overcome, and advance toward World Revolution is
being made by Moscow.^

To the historically minded it is interesting to observe
the parallel between the present-day relations of the
Nanking national government to the Communists and
those of the imperial Manchu government to their
Chinese opponents in the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury. As a result of the First Anglo-Chinese War (1839-
42) the imperial government called on the people to arm
themselves against the British “barbarians.” 'When the
war was over the Manchus came near being hoist by
their own petard, unable as they were to disarm the
people and prevent them from turning their arms
against the throne. To strengthen itself to gain an im-
mediate victory, the Kuomingtang took in the Com-
munists in 1924, thinking to use and dispense with their
services at pleasure. Seven years later the Kuomingtang
is fighting for its life against its late ally.

^ For bringing to my attention the articles quoted in the ISloscow press^
and for translating them, I am indebted to my colleague. Professor Samuel
N. Harper. ; ,

204

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Concerning the organization and membership of the
Chinese Communist party little is known except that
it is organized along the general lines of the Russian
party and is functioning on a national scale. Prior to the
establishment of the soviet government in Russia the
interest of Chinese in communism was almost purely
academic; the literature and propaganda began to come
in from Japan as well as from Russia.^ A soviet agent,
Popov, reached Shanghai in 1919 to study the situation
and report to Moscow. In the following year a Chinese
Communist party, the Kungtsantang, was organized,
and China was represented at the Baku Congress. In
1921 the Kungtsantang entered into affiliation with the
Third International. Membership grew slowly during
the next few years although the process of forming cells
within the Kuomingtang appears to have been im-
mediately undertaken. Following the official opening of
the Kuomingtang to the Communists in 1924, the Kung-
tsantang expanded fairly rapidly under Russian inspira-
tion and guidance, and ere long the tail was swinging the
kite. In 1927, when the Fifth National Convention of
the party was held, more than 50,000 members were
claimed.

The outstanding native civilian leaders of this period
were Li Ta-chao, T’an P’ing-shan, and Ch’en Tu-hs’iu.
The scholar Li Ta-chao was probably the Chinese repre-
sentative at the Baku Congress, although the spelling of
the name of China’s representative given in the press
was “Lai.” During the period (1923-26) in which Am-
bassador Karakhan was propagating communism in the
government colleges of Peking, Li was his lieutenant,

^ C£ H. O. Chapman, The Chinese Resolution ^ 1926-27, p. 45.

THE SICKLE vs. THE STAR ’

205

bemg the leader of the Peking Communist&» His career
was cut short on April 28, 1927, by strangulation follow-
ing his capture during the raid on the soviet embassy by
Chang Tso-lin’s police.

T’an P’ing-shan, a Cantonese, born in 1887, rose to
influence as the head of the students in Canton and of
the local branch of the Young Socialist League. In
December, 1923, he was a member of the Communist
Congress in Shanghai, representing Canton. During the
following three and a half years he was extremely active
in co-operating with Borodin. Like other avowed Com-
munists, he had alternate innings and outings; he par
ticipated in the general strike at Canton in 1925; ex-
pelled from the Kuomingtang, he was, in January, 1926,
restored to grace as a member of the Central Executive
Committee by the party Congress. He led in the union-
ization of the peasants and laborers and headed their
bloc. When Chiang Kai-shek carried out his anti-Com-
munist coup in March, 1926, during the temporary
absence of Borodin, T’an, the head of the Communists,
was one of those against whom it was directed. With
the return of Borodin, T’an came back into power, and
was a member of the Wuhan government until its col-
lapse in the summer of 1927. Since that time his activi-
ties have been carried on through subterranean chan-
nels.

Ch’en Tu-hs’iu, the third of the trio of civilian
Communist leaders of the early period, is a native of
Anhwei, born in 1879. After studying several years in
Japan and France, he participated in the revolution of
1911-12. In 1917 he was a member of the department
of literature of the Peking National University; forced

2o6 china in revolution

to leave oir account of his radical leanings, he edited
La Jeunesse, and other extremist journals in Shanghai,
for a period. In 1924 he joined the Kuomingtang, but
shortly went over to the Communists. During the
sovietization period of the Kuomingtang he was a mem-
ber of the Central Executive Committee. Called at
times the “Chinese Lenin,” he was considered the head
of the Kungtsantang during the Wuhan period, and co-
operated with Borodin and Wang Ching-wei. Like T’an,
he has been a member of the Third International.

Other prominent Communists (or Communist co-
operators) of this period were Li Lih-san, the Moscow-
trained labor agitator and organizer of the great strike
fund in Shanghai following the Nanking-road shootings
of May 30, 1925 ; Liao Chung-kai, the labor leader and
finance minister of Canton, and Chen Chiu-lin, a news-
paper editor, both of whom were assassinated at Canton
in the summer of 1925; Sze Zung-tung, another editor
and a sometime member of the faculty of a Communist
“university” in Shanghai; Hsu Ch’ien, a lawyer, a writ-
ter, an editor, and a friend who accompanied Dr. Sun on
the latter’s last trip to Peking, and later became one of
the violent extremists of Wuhan in 1926-27; Ch’en Kung-
po, who for a time headed the Political Bureau of the
Wuhan government and agitated among the laborers of
Central China so successfully as to embarrass even that
radical government; Teng Yen-ta, a Cantonese graduate
of the Paoting Military Academy, who spent some time
in Germany and Russia, and who also for a period was
the head of the Political Bureau of the soviet- Kuoming-
tang government at Canton and Wuhan ; and Ku Meng-
yu, born in Chihli in 1888, a graduate of the University

THE SICKLE THE STAR

207

of Berlin^ and, for some years, on the economics faculty
of the Peking National University, following which he
participated in the Canton-Wuhan government in 1926-
27, afterward withdrawing to Europe with Wang Chiiig-
wei. Whether the last four listed are formal members of
the Kungtsantang is unclear, but, in the light of their
actions, of little consequence.

The Russian-inspired first wave of communism rose
during the years 1924-26, to break in 1927; since the
latter date the Communists have been moving restlessly
in a trough, slowly gathering their forces, it appears, to
rise a second time. In some ways their position has been
not altogether dissimilar to that of the Kiiomingtang
in the period 1913-25. Prevented from applying their
doctrines through an organized government, they have
been forced to retreat for a further period of preparation,
both military and propagandistic. If their propaganda
and their military activities are jointly considered, it ap-
pears that the alternatives faced by Nanking are com-
parable to those faced by the northern war lords from
1926 to 1930. Two sets of leaders and principles are
struggling not merely for supremacy but for existence,
since it is evident that no country as homogeneous cul-
turally as China can remain half-Communist, half-
capitalist, in organization.

Evidence of this is to be found in such Communist
sources as Nos. i and 2 of ihc China Corre 3 ponde 7 ice^
published by the Revolutionary Red Aid Society in
China in November and December, 1930. Composed in
somewhat indifferent English and without too great a
regard for accuracy of statement, these bulletins con-
tain excellent material illustrative of the appeals of com-

2o8

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

munism to "'peasants and laborers. In catechetical form
the aims of the Society are presented in No. i :

1. For what is the Revolutionary Red Aid Society in China
organized?

Whenever the ruled class in any country are brutally oppressed by
the ruling class, the former together with their sympathizers are
bound to [be] enraged. To the brutal oppression, there is always an
equally powerful reaction. .... The White Terror is so cruel that
the country-wide masses have to guard themselves against it by
means of organized strenth [su]. Every day speeches are their
“wills’"; bloody clothes are to be the only ornaments left for their
corpses; and this is the sole background of the organization of the
Revolution [s^c] Red Aid Society in China.

2. Who are the organizers of the Revolutionary Red Aid Society
in China?

Whoever will profit from the anti-White-Terror movement are
organizers of the movement. It is the whole oppressed class who
want the movement most urgently. So, the organizers .... are
workers, peasants, poverized people, students, revolutionary ele-
ments and revolutionary sympathizers belonging to the liberal pro-
fession. ....

3. What is the programme of the Revolutionary Red Aid
Society in China?

It is as follows:

A. Oppose the White Terror, namely oppose all oppressive
measures adopted by the ruling class against all revolutionary move-
ments.

B. Aid all revolutionary struggles .... aid all movements
against the ruling class.

C. Aid all revolutionary fighters and their families .... summon
the masses to assist the victimized revolutionary fighters and their
families.

D. Summon famine sufferers to demand for relief. Chinese

famine sufferers are products of the Chinese militarist wars

What does the migration of famine sufferer mass into city mean? It
means that China is suffering complete bankruptcy of village econ-
omy as well as of the economy of the whole country under the rule
of the Koumintang . . . .

E. Oppose Fascist philanthropy From it the Koumintang

gets most of its military funds

THE SICKLE oj. THE STAR

209

F. Oppose imperialists and the Koumintang 'Sittackiiig the
Chinese Soviet district. The Chinese Soviet distrfct is the fruit of
the present revolution in China. Aiming to completely eliminate
revolutionary influence, imperialists and the Koumintang are jointly
attacking the area. They have launched many a suppression cam-
paign, they have burned up many forests and bombed many moun-
tains. They kill every body, [jzV] and destroy every thing [iiV] in
their way.

4. How is the Revolutionary Red Aid ... * getting along at
present?

[It] has now a total membership of 730,000, 700,000 in the Soviet
district and 30,000 in the White region. The Red Trade Unions, Poor
Peasants* Associations, Revolutionary Students* Unions and Poor
Women’s Associations are all its affiliated members. Only with the
exceptions of Tsinhai, Chinese Turkistan, Tibet and Kweichow, its
organization has spread over all parts of China. There are, however,
several defects about the organization at present: (i) Number of
members in the non-Soviet district too is small; (2) Branches of
individual members are not organizationally strong; (3) It is still not
an organization of broad masses, for in the non-Soviet district there
are only 30,000 members. ... .

5. What is the relationship between the .... Society and the
Red Aid International?^

The Revolutionary Red Aid Society in China is the branch of the
Red Aid International in this country. It, directly aided by the
latter, submits weekly reports to it for approval and instruc-
tion ==

The issue between the ‘‘present joint rule of imperial-
ist and Koumintang in China'" and the workers and
peasants is clearly outlined in the “Opening Speech"" of
the same bulletin:

In oppressing the working class the imperialist and capitalists
have adopted extraordinarily drastic measures such as lockout, part

^ The Red Aid International is the Chinese section of the International
Society for Assistance to Revolutionaries. The largest and most important
section of this organization is the one in the Soviet Union which, under the
Russian abbreviation M.O.P.R., is one of the most important of the soviet
“patriotic” societies.

"PP*7“9*

210

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

time employnfentj hire of White Russians to replace nativeSj thus
preparing a "'heii and grave/’ so to speak, for the workers. . . . .
As a result, Chinese workers and peasants, being deprived of the
means of making a humble living, could not but take the control of
destiny into their own hands and raise the revolutionary torch as a
final means of self-salvation. Now revolutionary outbreaks in China
are matters of daily occurrance [w] which can be seen anywhere and
everywhere. Chinese workers and peasants are firmly dedicated to
what is called a “victory or death” struggle against the oppressing
class. And they will not desist until they are fully set free. . . . .
Now, with the Red armies enlarged to 300,000 men and Red districts
comprising more than 300 hsiens [i.e., districts— the smallest units
of government in the country], the Chinese Soviet Government as
composed of workers, peasants and soldiers is fairly able to stand
on its own feet and to face the Koumin tang government. Moreover,
the Chinese Red Army, consisting of workers and peasants, is ad-
vancing towards central cities in an endeavor to effect a conjunction
with the struggle in those cities. It is fighting desperately with the
Koumintang and imperialist armies and navies for the political con-
trol of one or several provinces. At the same time, the workers and
poveri2ed people in cities are waging large scale struggles as, for
example, continuous strikes and demonstrations, in favor of the
Soviet Government, thus unquestionably making the rule of.
Koumintang and imperialist come to a speedy end. . . . .^

Contemporaneously with the winding-up of President
Chiang’s campaign against the Yen Hsi-shan-Feng Yu-
hsiang~Wang Ching-wei coalition in North China in
October, 1930, the Red Aid Society held an organization
conference to prepare for the announced advance by
Nanking against the Communists. To this conference
one S. A. Dai presented a report^ analyzing the differ-
ence between “two kinds of governments and two kinds
of armies.’' That of the Kuomingtang, he declared, is

hated by the masses. It sells air right, land right, and water right to
the imperialists. It has increased the land tax two or three times
more than the amount imposed by the Manchus. Besides the land

^ Pp. 1 - 3 .

I’P- 3-5-

THE SICKLE THE STAR

211

taXj other trivial taxes have numbered over .seven hundred*. It has
within the last three years murdered no less than 150,000 laborers.
It arrested and killed more than 5,000 students and teachers last
year. It has. lately waged a civil, war cost among other things, no
less than 300,000 human lives and about 300,000,000 dollars'^ IMex.
Even the wounded have numbered about 500,000. .... Those who
still live have to' share the burden of about 600,000,000 bonds issued
by the Nanking government.

The second kind of political authority is welcomed by the masses.
It has lately fought with the soldiers of the imperialists more than
ten times. . . .. . More than three hundred districts have seen their
land confiscated from the hands of the land owners. There are al-
ready something like 80,000,000 peasants cultivating land but paying
no rent as they used to. In those Soviet districts, about three hun-
dred of them, there is only one single tax, the income tax. Working
hours are limited to eight, while wages have been increased lately two
to four times. In West Fukien alone, within a territory little over
ten districts, there are already three thousand Lenin schools for
the peasant children. The Soviets, on the other hand, shoot down
anybody who trades in opium.

There are two kinds of wars in China. The first is the fight be-
tween the Whites, both sides holding up the Koumintang flags, but
each is fighting for its own masters; and the masters for both sides
are the imperialists. Such fight among the militarists, though it at
present has stopped for a while, will certainly begin again; soon be-
tween the Chiang [Kai-shek] and the Chang [Hsueh-liang] factions.
The second kind of fight is that of the Reds against the Whites, the
Soviets against the Koumingtangs, the “Lower classes'" against the
“Higher classes”; it is a fight for the masses, decidedly a revolution-
ary fight.

What did the people receive when the Whites fought the Whites?
Land tax was collected in advance, as far ahead as 1943 in some
places of Szechwan province.^ Then there were compulsory labor

^ This appears to be an extremely conservative statement. Professor Guy
W. Sarvis, a member of the Laymen’s Foreign Missions Inquiry, who traveled
through a considerable part of Szechwan during the first quarter of the year
1931, makes the following statement in his typescript journal, under dare of
February 8: “In many portions of the province taxes have been collected
30 to 40 years in advance, and in some places it is asserted that they have
been collected for 99 years. The people are forced to grow opium and pay
a very high tax on it, and if they refuse, they pay the opium tax anyhow —
it is then called a lazy tax’—a tax which no other crop will support”

:axa::

and compnlspry contribution of various good for the soldiers and for
the officers in the White forces. Working hours in the arsenals were
prolonged, communication interrupted, rice price rapidly advanced,
salt supply almost exhausted! During the fight between the Red
and the White, the situation is quite different. The White army
burns every thing in sight and kills everybody within reach.
The White soldiers are ordered to stuf their ears with cotton,
lest they may easily be attracted by the slogans and the songs of the
Red army! Whenever the Red force arrives, it eradicates all the
evils for the people, and causes new, healthy and useful organiza-
tions to be set up. Whenever it leaves, it distributes among the
peasants the arms taken from the land owners and Whites. The
peasantry is always a formidable force behind the Red army

A survey of the military strength and position of the
Communists at the close of 1930^ reported the active
operation of eleven armies in^ or on the borders of,
Honan, Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi, Anhwei, Fukien,
Kwangtung, and Kwangsi. Another army had been
organized, and was preparing for operations in Hupeh;
and several others were in process of formation to oper-
ate in Hupeh, Hunan, Hopei (Chihli), and Manchuria.

The Communist technique of Moscow of providing
political officers to accompany the commanders of the
armies is used by the Chinese Communists, as it was by
the sovietized Nationalists in 1926-27. Certain of the
political officers are former students, as, for example.
Tsao Ta-ching, Tseng Ju-hsiang, Hsi Tai-yuan, Teng
Hsi-hsien, and Teng Kan-yuan. Others are former
Whampoa Military cadets, such as Chou I-ch"un and
Tung Wei-min. Two other Whampoa cadets, Hsu Chi-
chen and Tsai Shen-hsi, have become commanders of
the first and third Communist armies, respectively. Chu
Teh, a German-trained militarist of the pre-Nationalist

^ E. Hunter, op. cit.

THE SICKLE ox. THE STAR

213

period, is the commander of the fourth army, the oldest
and best known of these forces. Equally well known is
his co-operating military officer, Mao Tze-tung. These
two men are outstanding leaders of the movement. Al-
most equally notorious is the peasant commander. Ho
Lung, of the second army. Others of the old-style mili-
tarists who have gone over to the Communists are P’eng
Teh-huai, commander of the fifth army, and Chang
Yun-i, a graduate of the Paoting Military Academy,
who leads the seventh army. In northern Kiangsi, in the
neighborhood of the famous porcelain factories of Kin-
Teh-Chen, Fang Che-ming has been active, while Tuan
Teh-chang, Liu Yang, and the bandit leader, Kung Ho-
chung, have been terrorizing northern and eastern
Hunan for many months.

The methods used by the Communists in gaining a
foothold in new territory around Hankow are reported
by a competent American observer in China in 1930-31
who has had much experience in that country.’'

Mr. .... said that two members of the Party would come

secretly or quietly to a village, usually with someone who was a
Communist who was acquainted locally. They wmuld have meetings
at night or in a temple outside the village with a few of the local men
who were most favorably disposed, and would get them committed to
the program. The main arguments used were three: first, that they
ought not to pay rent because they did all the work and the owner
did none; second, that they need not pay their debts because the
property really belonged to them as much as to the owner; and third,
that they got nothing for their taxes, and that, therefore, they should
not pay them. Having won the support of a sufficient number, they
would placard the town and then go to people one by one and ask
them to join the Party. Of course it would be known by this time
that it would be unsafe not to join — although once having joined,
there is no way to escape, unless the whole group renounces Com-

^ G. Sarvis, op, ciL, date, January 14, 1931.

214

CHINA IN' REVOLUTION

munism, for the methods are those of the Black Hand, and a Party
member who is disloyal is killed. The people are thus caught between
the Devil and the Deep Sea, and take the alternative which at the
moment seems safest. Finally the whole village would be taken over
by the Communists, the land seized and reapportioned, often in very
small parcels of less than two acres. Then one day there appeared
in the village two strangers dressed in foreign overcoats, inquiring
for some of the leading men. These were pointed out to them, and
the strangers told them that they had been extortionate and op-
pressive and that they had come to settle the matter with them.
Calling the crowd to stand aside, they whipped automatics out of
their pockets and shot the men on the spot. Then turning to the
crowd, they asked, -Have we done right or wrong? You be the
judges. . . . At first there was no resistance to the Communists,
but later the villagers, and particularly the owners, organized the
Red Spear Societies (Hong Tsiang Hwei), and they terrorized the
Communists as the Communists had terrorized them. And when the
soldiers came, they secured lists of the Communists, and many who
had joined through fear were killed or expropriated. The Commu-
nists are pretty well cleared out of the region in which Mr.

lives, at least so far as overt activity is concerned, but it is unsafe to
go out in most of the country around Hankow.^

The activities of the Communists along the reaches
of the upper Yangtze^ in the Hankow-Ichang region, are
described at first hand by the same observer;

Jan. i6. — ^Today we are to steam through the country of the
Reds, and are expecting some compliments from them. Along the
river bank are bulletin boards with placards in large characters
*'Down with imperialism*’ — which means us, or anything in sight,

^ Interesting light on the manner in which manufacturers are caught be-
tween the upper and the nether millstones of nationalism and communism
is thrown by the same writer in the following incidental comment: '*Mr,

told me that the Yangtze Engineering Works [near Hankow] are now

[mid-January, 1931] closed because Wang Kwang, the owner, says he cannot
run under the conditions laid down. This company was one of the best in
China, and Mr. W^'ang is one of the finest Christian business men. Fourteen
per cent, of the profits must go to the government and 50% of the balance
to the laborers, and the books must be completely open to inspection. The
government owes him about three million dollars [silver] on bridge and other
contracts.’*

THE SICKLE vs. THE STAR

I

215

particularly the present government at Nanking In factj

much of the ideology of the Reds is imported; but except for minor
changes, the movement seems to me to differ little from the old-
fashioned banditry, and to grow out of the same causes. Contentedj
safe, well-fed people do not become bandits or Reds in this country.
I myself have rather objected to the indiscriminate use of the term
“Red’ V to describe ail kinds of “opposition.’’ In this case, liowwer,
it is inevitable, for they use the red flag and armband and call them-
selves the Red Army.

Last night we tied up an hour or more before dark. When we
asked the captain why, he said that there was bad country ahead
which it would take 2| hours of steaming to get through, and that if
we should get stuck or have to anchor in that region, it might be
serious. At first I thought he was referring to the character of the
river, but he was talking of the Reds — and you will think we talked
of nothing else, which might not be so far from the truth! Yesterday
we were stuck in the mud for hours. The officers pointed out the
red flags on the bank and said that they were waiting until night-
fall to try to board us — ail of which gives some point to our guard
of marines I No one was allowed to come aboard after dark last
night. ....

Jan. 17. — ^The expected incidents did not occur yesterday, but
we did anchor early again in order to avoid passing Temple Hill,
where boats are regularly fired on, near nigh t-fall. Temple Hill is at
the point where the Yangtze takes a sharp turn to the north below
Ichang. .... This morning we were up and dressed before 7:30 in
anticipation of the firing at Temple Hill. The marines were ail out
with their rifles. Upstairs, the bridge and the officers’ quarters is a
small fortress completely encased in armor-plate and with a Lewis

gun We had passed the summit of the hill .... when there

was a burst of flame on the saddle connecting the hill with its neigh-
bor .... the shots fell short. , . . . All our rifles and machine gun
got into action, and there was a lively fusillade for some minutes.
.... It is rather interesting and significant to note how the attitude
of foreign powers toward these matters has changed. Not long ago
it would have been necessary to get the permission of the admiral to
fire under such circumstances. Now we continued for half an hour
to fire at every sign of movement in the neighborhood ot any of the
red flags which are planted at frequent intervals along the bank.
.... The whole situation has degenerated into guerilla warfare. It
is an illustration of what is sure to happen in the absence of recog-
nized government control. . . . .

2i6

CHINA ■ IN'-- REVOLUTION

During iny writing this morning, I have jumped up several times
to go to the window and read the signs along the river banks. Some
are of the vintage of 1927 and some are more recent. Here are a few:

Establish the government of the soldiers, peasants and workers!

Establish the government of the people; overthrow military governments!

Oppose another world- war!

Recover the Concessions and expel foreign soldiers!

The present struggle between the Communists and
the national government and the war lords is^ as just
stated, mainly one of guerrilla warfare. Another observ-
er, previously cited, remarks:

The military tactics adopted by these frenzied fighters are as
simple as a schoolboy’s primer. When they are strong enough to
meet the foe, they meet him. When not, they drop out of the picture,
dispersing like raindrops on the yellow surface of the Yangtze, and
apparently are as difficult to distinguish from the mass.^

In a second desperate appeal for foreign aid against
the Communists, Dr. Ida Kahn, one of China's two
most distinguished women physicians, writes:

Think not that I am talking in hyperbole! In my province of
Kiangsi alone, only three cities have escaped out of eighty-one
county seats, and outside of the city limits, these towns have had
fighting carried on around them and much damage has been sus-
tained. Many of these towns have been looted and burned several
times, and thousands and thousands of people have been killed,

while millions upon millions have been made homeless In the

city of Kian and the surrounding country alone, twenty-six thousand
persons were killed. Even from a small town like Kin-Teh-Chen
.... the loot carried away amounted to over a million dollars, while
from Kian, the silver and gold gathered from repeated lootings (from

everywhere) is said to have totalled forty millions What

makes it even worse is that the damage to the property is not only
transient but is more or less permanent. In places which are under
the control of the Communists, as in Kin-Teh-Chen, all the deeds
were burned. The landmarks to all the fields were obliterated and
then three mou, or half an acre, of land was allotted to each family.
.... When the soldiers come to drive them away, there are no

^ E. Hunter, op. ctt.y p, 323.

THE SICKLE w. THE STAR

CllJ

Communists to be seen. Only peaceful farmers are there tilling the
soil .and, quiet artizans carrying'on their trade. When the troops are
gone, then up spring the bandits and the iooting and pillaging go on
as ^merrily as ever. Hence the famous slogan, ‘‘Ni hi ngo ch’n Ni
ch’u ngo lai 1 If you come I will go but if you go, then I will come.”
Can any troops run such illusive creatures to their covers? Never!
No never! And the poor soldiers! Who can blame them entirely!
Ill fed, ill clothed, and ill paid with wages many months in arrears,
what condition of mind and body are they in to meet these spirits
so alert and subtle. One minute they drop upon you almost from
the clouds and snatch your weapons away, and the next moment
they have melted away like the dew and you cannot hnd any hide
or hair of them. Is it any wonder that whole divisions of troops are
surrounded and taken by these daring spirits who are usually far
inferior in numbers and who are poorly armed?*

Each side accuses the other of the most atrocious
cruelties to prisoners — and each practices, apparently,
what it blames the other for doing. The China Corre-
spondence d^davQs:

Far more terrible and cruel than being shot to death is the cor-
poral punishment scarcely heard of in the world which is always
applied to the revolutionary victims after their arrests and before
their execution. By doing so, the ruling classes aim to get the secret
plans of the revolutionary organizations from the victims. The fol-
lowing corporal punishments are widely employed by the different
factions of the Kuomintang:

1. Hanging one or two thumbs in the air, loading baskets of
bricks or stones across the shoulders or on the feet and then whipping
the whole body.

2. Pulling the head, the hands and feet of the victim in different
directions in the air by means of a specially made implement and
then striking the body with sticks or forcing the victim to breathe
in suffocating gas.

3. Beating the back of the victim with hammer or pricking with
needles deeply into his hingers fjfr].

4. Passing strong electric current through the victim’s body —
this is learned from the imperialists.

^ China Weekly Review, LV, No. 13, 446-48; cf. also Chia Hsi Yen,
“What Communist Bandits Have Done in Kiangsi,” ihid.. No. 5, pp. 186-87.

2I8

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

5. *'Iron HaV’ — a special iron made hat which, when put over
the head, can be contracted by screwing and the victim^s head is
squeezed from all sides.

6. Injecting iron wires into sexual organs, no difference with male
■or female. ■■■

7. Hanging up side down— hanging the major toes in the air
and then various cruel actions are played on the body.

8. Stamping the bare body with red hot iron plates until the
whole body of the victim looks like roasted meat.^

The campaign of the Nationalists against the northern
coalition during the summer and autumn of 1930 forced
President Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw almost all gov-
ernment troops from the central and southern provinces:
this left the Communists practically a free hand to
expand their hold by military pressure, propaganda, and
the purchase of adherents by money and threats. The
ending of the northern campaign offered an opportunity,
more apparent than real, to the Nanking government to
undertake the crushing of communism. Its troops were
worn out by unceasing and desperate war; the govern-
ment itself was financially embarrassed; how long a time
might elapse before it would be called upon to face an-
other war with Feng Yu-hsiang, with the Kwangsi fac-
tion, or even a struggle with Chang Hsueh-liang, no one
could predict. Plans were immediately announced for
the undertaking of the anti-Communist war, however,
and parts of the defeated troops of Yen Hsi-shan and
Feng Yu-hsiang which had been surrendered were
moved southward to co-operate with their recent ene-
mies, the Nanking forces, to face the common enemy.
Offers of rewards for the capture of Communist leaders
were made — unavailingly— and various attacks on their
strongholds were begun. ^

THE SICKLE THE STAR

219

, Sporadic, reports. of sweeping- victories, "accompanied
.by . the seizure of Communist- lairs and the capture of
Red leaders, have., appeared in the- -press from time to
time.' They are, strongly remimscent, however, of re-
ports to the throne in the nineteenth century of victories
over the Taipings: the imperial .forces always won, but
the rebels seemed not to be aware of the fact. The
Nationalist forces, too, are winning, but heaven is kind
to the enemy. Like the imperial troops w^ho fought the
Taipings, the government troops are reported often to
treat the people, on whom they are billeted, worse than
the Communists treat them; this is not conducive to
government victories. The government, if it has no
other major wars to wage, and if it is able to put into
effect its plans for national reconstruction upon which in
recent months so much time and attention have been
expended, may ultimately win by attrition. In the
meantime, it is finding the ideology and the evanescence
of the Communists a more difficult foe than were ever
the old-time war lords or the perennial bandits. There
appear to be involved in this struggle not merely per-
sonal ambitions and the desire for pelf, but also a con-
flict of political and social ideals which it is likely to
take a very considerable time to harmonize. Until they
are harmonized, or one side is completely crushed, the
Chinese revolution cannot end, and no stability can be
established.

CHAPTER XIII
CONCLUSION

T hus far an attempt has been made to explain
the origins of the Chinese revolution, and to
trace in some detail the political and military
phases since 1911. For reasons stated in the Preface,
the intricate relations existing between the foreign and
the domestic problems involved have been generally
avoided, but it should not be forgotten that the move-
ments in progress have their origin as much outside the
country as inside. For more than four hundred years
the Chinese people have been increasingly affected by
the influence of the West. Had it not been for this, and
the problems arising out of the conflict between Western
and Far Eastern civilizations, the struggle of the Chinese
to overthrow the alien Manchu dynasty would, in all
probability, have had no more serious or far-reaching re-
sults than earlier similar struggles on their part to
demonstrate that heaven’s mandate had been with-
drawn from the ruling house. A period of confusion
would have ended with the founding of another dynasty,
and the country would have continued to swing in its
ancient orbit.

The expulsion of the Manchus was a relatively simple
matter; the attempt to institute a system of government
essentially alien has proved more complicated. Even
the unifying influence of a son of heaven, expressing the
will of heaven and the reigning family through a hier-

CONCLUSION

221

I

archy of scholar-officials, was never able definitively to
overcome the physical and non-physical forces of' de-
centralization eternally working in the Chinese world.
After fourteen years of confusion the posthumous per-
sonality of Sun Yat-sen was substituted for that of the
emperor, and, to a considerable degree, for that of
Confucius. The portrait of the dead revolutionary lead-
er, the conflicting ideology to be found in his writings,
and a magnificent mausoleum at Nanking have not as
yet sufficed to accomplish what the long line of dynas-
ties, which ruled parts of the country from the dawn of
history, never wholly succeeded in doing.

No people, however gifted, disciplined, and organized,
can break completely with their past. That the Chinese
are a gifted people no one can deny; but the degree to
which they are disciplined and organized is subject to
debate. Ability to coalesce temporarily for a negative
purpose, such as a boycott or a strike, they have in a
high degree, but union for advancement toward a posi-
tive goal, and willingness to sacrifice individual and
family ambitions, and personal welfare, to follow a lead-
er and a government for the good of the country as a
whole are not as often to be observed. This, Yuan Shih-
kai and Sun Yat-sen found during their troubled
careers, and Chiang Kai-shek is still discovering.

Bearing in mind the ceaseless conflict of cultures
through which the country is passing; the vast areas in-
cluded in China and her far-flung dependencies; the civil
wars, bandit raids, floods, earthquakes, famines, and
pestilences from which the people suffer unendingly; the
high percentage of illiteracy and general conservatism
of the Chinese; the effect on their mind of their age-old

222

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

civilization,^ and the belief that their country consti-
tuted the center of the world, with- themselves the only
civilized people therein, it is remarkable that as much
progress has been made in recent years as is to be
observed.

Yuan Shih-kai’s generation of militarists has largely
passed into oblivion, to be succeeded, however, by a
fairly large and active group of younger and, apparently,
no less ambitious and selfish warriors. The military, as
well as the poor, China has always with her. Neverthe-
less, a system of government has been carefully worked
out on paper, and partly put into effect. This incorpo-
rates new and old elements, foreign and Chinese, which
may yet serve the country well. Model districts have
been, and are being, organized in several provinces to
serve as examples of administration for the surrounding
areas. Public parks, recreational centers, free schools,
and public libraries are being opened in considerable
numbers. The mass-education movement has obtained
a foothold in widely separated areas and, if foreign con-
tributions continue until Chinese willingness to use their
own wealth for this purpose makes them no longer
necessary, much of good may come from it. Agriculture
and sericulture are being improved under both Chinese
and foreign leadership. Medical science, public health,
and hygiene are, likewise, being spread through the
country by the co-operation of Westerners with modern-
educated Chinese scientists. Irrigation, afforestation,
reforestation, and harbor projects are also being carried
out. New codes of law have been, and are still being,
promulgated which, in time, will be successfully applied
on a greater scale than at present; when this time comes

CONCLUSION

223

the militarists in control of a district, the local district
committees of the Kuomingtang, and the central gov-
ernment itself will have ceased to interfere with the ad-
ministration of justice for political purposes. Until the
judiciary is independent, the number and modernity of
codes of law are, of course, of small value except for
propaganda purposes.

A generally efficient postal service, which grew out of
the maritime-customs service under Sir Robert Hart’s
administration, is being maintained despite numerous
difficulties. With the decision of England to remit the
remainder of her Boxer indemnity funds, and to use a
considerable part of these for railway construction in
China, a great step forward may be taken in improve-
ment of railway communications. Without such im-
provement, and the development of motor roads and
waterways, the country can never be permanently uni-
fied administratively, and the ravages of famine and
bandits prevented. In the construction of motor roads
some progress is reported in almost every province, al-
though at times the methods used for obtaining ground,
funds, and labor for their construction have brought
forth bitter protest and narrowly failed to cause revolt
on the part of the hard-driven people. Such reforms as
the ones mentioned, and many others which are being
introduced, are often overlooked by critics of the mili-
tary and political confusion from which the people are
suffering.

Aside from the apparent inability of the people of
China to unite whole-heartedly under discipline to fol-
low a national leader, or government, the outstanding
problems faced by contemporary China are those con-

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

224

nected witli the spread of communism, the lack of
transportation, and the survival of militarism. The
seriousness of the first has been discussed. With respect
to the solution of the second a start has been made.
Little, if any, real progress can be reported on the third.
Lacking willingness on the part of the commanders and
their troops to disband, and funds for so doing, as well
as for the transfer of soldiers to constructive employ-
ment in civil life, the disbandment of the armies cannot
take place. Without the removal of the burden of mili-
tarism from the country, sufficient funds are unavailable
for the disbandment of the armies and the peaceful
development of the country by the civil officials. Thus a
vicious circle exists through which no politician has as
yet been able to break to prove himself thereby a states-
man of the first rank.

On May 4, the eve of the opening of the National
People’s Convention, the plans for the calling of which
had caused a split between President Chiang Kai-shek
and Mr. Hu Han-min, a new outbreak of the southern
militarists occurred at Canton which illustrated anew
the adage that, in May, Chinese generals’ fancies lightly
turn to thoughts of war. Under the partial instigation
of Mr. Wang Ching-wei, who had recently returned to
Hongkong from Europe, General Chen Chi-tang, who
had gone to Nanking in January in company with
Governor (and General) Huang Shao-hung of Kwangsi,
to discuss the peaceful rehabilitation of the southern
provinces, headed a revolt against President Chiang,
and called upon him to resign his offices or fight to retain
them. The quarrel with Hu, and the plan to promulgate
a provisional constitution, were cited by Chiang’s

CONCLUSION

325

enemies as proofs of his plans to consolidate Tiis position
as dictator. Those in Canton who were loyal to Nanking
were forced to flee, while plans were reported for a union
with the former rebel generals of Kwangsi to be aided
by the “Ironsides,” the raising of an army of fifty
thousand men to oust Chiang, the secession of the seven
southern provinces, and the establishment of a new left-
wing Kuomingtang government under Wang Ching-wei.

The arrival in Nanking by air of Marshal Chang
Hsueh-liang to attend the Convention made it apparent
that he was still loyal to the Nanking government, al-
though there were intimations that some members of
the government itself, including Mr. Sun Fo, were in
sympathy with the southern rebel radicals.

The latest outbreak surprises no student of the revolu-
tion in China. It merely demonstrates that, despite the
optimistic claims of Nanking to rule an already unified
country, the old forces of decentralization, provincial-
ism, and jealousy among the generals and politicians of
any leader who presumes to lead, have not been over-
come by the Kuomingtang national government con-
spicuously more successfully than they were by Yuan
Shih-kai. It also shows that the fiery personality of Mr.
Wang Ching-wei, who began his public career in 1909
by attempting to assassinate the prince regent, has, like
that of Sun Yat-sen, not been quenched by the passage
of years and numerous failures. Mr. Eugene Ch'en, the
foreign minister of the Canton-Wuhan period of 1925-37
who retired abroad during the summer of 1 927, returned
to China in February, 1931. Two months later he was
re-ensconced as a leader of the newly organized Canton
government with which the aged T’ang Shao-yi affiliated

226

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

himself. In June, Mr. C. C. Wu, Nanking’s minister to
Washington, resigned his post rather than constitute
himself the channel of Nanking’s appeal to the Ameri-
can government for arms with which to launch an attack
on his home province.

Apparently as undaunted in May, 1931, as he was in
March, 1929, on the occasion of the simultaneous out-
break of the Kwangsi faction at Wuhan and the opening
of the Third Kuomingtang Congress, President Chiang
opened the National People’s Convention (Kuo-Min-
Hui-I) on the fifth of the month, according to schedule,^
While the members of the Convention listened to the
reports of the progress and plans made by the national
government, the President ordered troops to advance
on Canton from Fukien province, commandeered
Chinese vessels in Shanghai for purposes of transport,
and ordered his minister of war, General Ho Ying-
ch’in, to advance into Kiangsi to prevent co-operation
between the southern rebels and the Communists. Gen-
eral Ho is a Kweichow man by birth, who distinguished
himself by his loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek on the oc-
casion of the latter’s resignation of public office in the
summer of 1 927, and who had recently been stationed at
Hankow directing the campaign against the Com-
munists of South-Central China. If he now remains
loyal to President Chiang and his government, and if
Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang remains unshaken in his
devotion to Nanking, it may be somewhat difficult for
the Kwangtung-Kwangsi rebels to accomplish their
aims. The widespread Communist movement in parts
of their area and to the north of them, however, and

^For provisional constitution adopted, by this Convention cf. Appendix.

CONCLUSION

227;

the continued presence in the northwest’ of^ Marshal
Feng, and the development of Moscow ideology in
Shensi, are factors not to be lightly dismissed.

There is unlimited opportunity for criticism of the
government of the Kuomingtang and its creature, the
Nanking government. The honesty, sincerity, and abil-
ity of some of its. participants may be debatable. That
the country needs a strong government, with a carefully
prepared program, is not, however, to be disputed by
any impartial student of developments in China during
the past century, and particularly during the past
twenty years. The existing government is the best which
republican China has yet evolved; it is doubtful if there
exists in the country another group of men as capable
as those which the Nanking branch of the Kuomingtang
has succeeded in drawing to itself for purposes of ad-
ministration. It is more than a little doubtful whether
the overthrow of the existing group of men would be fol-
lowed by the substitution of a more honest and capable
assemblage. Rise to power has stabilized some of the
earlier radicals, and, in the eyes of some, they have be-
come conservative and autocratic. This appears to be
characteristic of any group raised to power, and is not
peculiar to the Chinese rulers at Nanking. The present
shakeup may conceivably be stimulating to them and
make them more careful, honest, and sincere in their
attempts to rule a great people. Beyond this it is diffi-
cult to see that anything good can come from the latest
attack of the southerners against Central and Northern
China.

APPENDIX

CHINESE CONSTITUTION^

is the Yueh- Fa (Provisional Constitu-
tion) as adopted at the fourth general session of the
Kuo-Min-Hui-I (National People's Convention) on
May i 2 y 1931:

Preamble

The National Government, in order to reconstruct the Republic
of China on the basis of the Three Principles of the People and the
Constitution of Five Powers, which forms the underlying principle
of the revolution, having now brought the revolution from the mili-
tary to the political tutelage period, deems it necessary to promul-
gate a Yueh Fa (Provisional Constitution) for general observance,
so that the realization of constitutional government may be ac-
celerated and political power restored to a popularly-elected govern-
ment; and further, in pursuance of the last will of our late Leader,
has called at the national capital the Kuo-Min-Hui-I (National
People's Convention).

The said National People's Convention do hereby enact and
ordain the following Provisional Constitution for enforcement during
the political tutelage period:

Chapter L General Principles

Article i. The territory of the Republic of China consists of
the various provinces and Mongolia and Tibet.

Art. 2. The sovereignty of the Republic of China is vested in
the people as a whole.

All persons who, according to law, enjoy the nationality of the
Republic of China shall be citizens (Kuo-Min) of the Republic of
China.

Art. 3. The Republic of China shall be a unified republic forever.

^From the Nor^k China Herald, VoL CLXXIX, No. 3328 (May 19,
1931), p. 221.

APPENDIX

aag::

Art. 4. The national flag of the Republic of Chira shall have a
red background with a “blue sky and white sun” in the upper left
corner.

Art. 5. Nanking shall be the national Capital of the Republic of

China.

Chapter IL ' Rxghts^ and Duties of the People

Art. 6 . Al! citizens (Kuo-Min) of the Republic of China shall be
equal before the law, irrespective of sex, race, religion or caste.

Art. 7. Citizens of the Republic of China shall, according to the
stipulation of Article 8 of the ‘'Outline of National Reconstruction,’^
enjoy in all completely autonomous districts (Hsien) the rights of
election, initiative, recall and referendum as provided by Article 9
of the “Outline of National Reconstruction.*’

Art. 8. Except in accordance with law, no person (Jen~min) shall
be arrested, detained, tried Of punished.

When a person is arrested or detained on a criminal charge, the
organ responsible for his (or her) arrest or detention shall send him
(or her) to the competent court for trial not later than 24 hours.
The party concerned may himself petition, or some other person may
petition on his behalf, that he be brought (before the Court) for trial
within 24 hours.

Art. 9. Except in accordance with law, no person other than
those in active military service shall be subject to trial by a military
court.

Art. 10. Except in accordance with law, no private houses of the
people shall be subject to forcible entry, search or sealing.

Art. II. All persons shall have the liberty of conscience.

Art. 12. All persons shall be free to choose and change their
residence; such freedom shall not be denied or restricted except in
accordance with law.

Art. 13. All persons shall have the right to the privacy of cor-
respondence and telegraphic communications: such right shall not
be denied or restricted except in accordance with law.

Art. 14. Ail persons shall have the freedom of assembly and
formation of associations: such freedom shall not be denied or re-
stricted except in accordance with law.

Art. 15. All persons shall have the liberty of speech and publica-
tion: such liberty shall not be denied or restricted except in accord-
ance with law.

Art. 16. Except in accordance with law, no private property shall
be sealed or confiscated.

230

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Art, 17." Tfee exercise of the right of ownership by any private
owner of property, in so far as it does not conflict with the public
interest, shall be protected by law.

Art. 18. Where public interest necessitates, the property of the
people may be expropriated in accordance with law.

Art, 19. All persons shall have the right to inherit property in
accordance with law.

Art. 20. All persons shall have the right of petition (to the
Government).

Art. 21. All persons shall have the right to institute judicial pro-
ceedings at the courts of justice, in accordance with law.

Art. 22. All persons shall have the right to submit petitions, and
institute administrative proceedings (at the Administrative Court)
in accordance with law (for the redress of wrongs done by Govern-
ment administrative organs).

Art. 23. All persons shall have the right to compete in civil
service examinations in accordance with law.

Art. 24. All persons may, according to law, hold public posts.

Art. 25. All persons shall have the duty of paying taxes in ac-
cordance with law.

Art. 26. All persons shall have the duty of undertaking military
service and of performing compulsory labour (for the state) in ac-
cordance with law.

Art. 27. Ail persons shall have the duty to obey the measures
taken by Government Organs in the performance of their duties
according to law.

Chapter III. Essentials of Political Tutelage

Art. 28. The political policies and programs during the period of
political tutelage shall be in accordance with the “Outline of Na-
tional Reconstruction.”

Art. 29. The system of district autonomy shall be enforced in
accordance with the provisions of the “Outline of National Recon-
struction” and the “Law Governing the Institution of District
Autonomy.”

Art. 30. During the period of political tutelage, the National
Congress of Kuomintang delegates (Kuo-Min-Tang-Tsuan-Kuo-
Tai-Piao Ta-Hui) shall exercise the governing powers on behalf of
the National People’s Congress (Kuo-Min-Ta-Hui). During the
recess of the National Congress of Kuomintang delegates, the Cen-

231

APPENDIX

tral Executive Committee of the Kuomintang shall exercise the said

powers. . ■ .

Art. The National Government shall train and guide (the
citizens) in the exercise of the four political rights of election, initia-
tive,, recall and referendum.

Art. 32. The National Government shall exercise the live govern-
ing powers, namely, executive, legislative, Judicial, examination and
supervisory. '

Chapter IV. People*s Livelihood

Art. 33. In order to develop the people’s economic welfare, the
state (Kuo-Chia) shall afford every encouragement and protection
to the productive enterprises of the people.

Art. 34. In order to develop rural economy, to improve the living
conditions of farmers as well as to promote the well-being of peas-
ants, the state shall take active steps for the carrying out of the
following measures:

1. Reclamation of all waste land in the country and development of
farm irrigation;

2 . Establishment of agricultural banks and encouragement of co-
operative enterprises in the rural communities;

3. Enforcement of the (public) granary system for the prevention of
famine and other calamities and replenishment of the people’s
food supplies;

4. Development of agricultural education with special emphasis on
scientific experiments, extensive development of agricultural en-
terprises and increase of agricultural produce.

5. Encouragement of road-building in the rural villages to facilitate
the transportation of agricultural products.

Art. 35. The state shall open and develop oil, coal, gold and iron
mines; and shall also encourage and protect private mining
enterprises.

Art. 36. The state shall undertake and inaugurate state shipping
enterprises; and shall also encourage and protect private shipping
enterprises.

Art. 37. Ail persons shall be free to choose their profession or
occupation. But when it is contrary to the public interest, the state
may, by law, restrict or deny such freedom.

Art. 38. All persons shall be free to make contracts: such free-
dom, in so far as it is not in conflict with the public interest or with
good morals, shall be protected by law.

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

232

Art. 39. In order to better their economic well-being as well as to
promote closer co-operation between Capital and Labour, the people
may form occupational organizations in accordance with law.

Art. 40. Both capital and labour shall develop productive enter-
prises in accordance with the principle of co-operation and mutual
benefit.

Art. 41. In order to improve the living conditions of labour, the
state shall put into effect various laws for the protection of labour
and shall afford special protection to child and woman workers in
respect to their age and health.

Art. 42. In order to safeguard as well as relieve peasants and
workers who shall be unable to work on account of accidents, sick-
ness, disability or old age, the state shall put into effect a labour
insurance system.

Art. 43. In order to promote the economic interests of the people,
the state shall encourage and promote various co-operative enter-
prises.

Art. 44. The state may control or regulate the production or sale
as well as the market price of daily necessaries of the people.

Art. 45. Laws shall be enacted for the prohibition of usury, and
exorbitant rents for the use of immovable properties.

Art. 46. The state shall give appropriate relief to those members
of the national forces who are disabled in the course of active service.

Chapter V. EotrcATioNr of the Citizens

Art. 47. The Three Principles of the People shall be the basic
principles of education in the Republic of China.

Art. 48. Both sexes shall have equal opportunity for education.

Art. 49. All public and private educational institutions in the
country shall be subject to the supervision of the state, and shall also
be responsible for the carrying out of the educational policies adopted
by the state.

Art. 50. All children of school age shall receive free education.
Details shall be separately provided by law.

Art. 51, Those who have not had free education (in their youth)
shall receive special adult education. Details shall be separately pro-
vided by law.

Art. 52. The Central and Local Governments shall provide
adequate funds for necessary educational expenses, and shall also
safeguard the security of funds which are, by law, specially set apart
(for educational purposes).

APPENDIX

^33

Art. 53. The state shall give encouragement or grSnts to private
educational institutions which have achieved particulariv satisfac-
tory results." . ■ ■ . ,

Art. 54. Encouragement and grants shall be given for the edu-
cation of overseas Chinese.

Art. 55* ^The state shall encourage and safeguard members of the
administrative or teaching staffs of schools who hold satisfactory
records and have been long in service.

Art. 56. All public and private educational institutions in the
country shall establish scholarships and prizes for the encourage-
ment of deserving but needy students.

Art. 57, The state shall encourage and protect research and
discoveries in science or the arts.

Art. 58. The state shall protect and preserve historic remains
and ancient relics which have historical, cultural or artistic value.

Chapter VI. Division of Power between the
Central and Local Governments

Art. 59. The principle of equilibrium shall be adopted in the
division of power between the Central and Local Governments, as
stipulated in Article 17 of the “Outline of National Reconstruction/*
Art. 60. The various local governments may, within their respec-
tive sphere of authority, enact and ordain local laws and regulations.
Where such laws and regulations are in conflict with those pro-
mulgated by the Central Government, they shall be null and void.

Art. 61. The demarcation of central and local revenues shall be
separately determined by law.

Art. 62. The Central Government may restrict, by law, any
local tax when

1. It is contrary to public interest,

2. It encroaches upon the source of central revenue,

3. It constitutes overlapping taxation,

4. It is detrimental to communications,

5. It is unjustifiably imposed upon goods imported from other locali-
ties for the sole benefit of the locality concerned,

6. It is in the nature of a transit duty on commodities in circulation
among various localities.

Art. 63. The power of granting patents and monopolies is vested
in the Central Government.

^34

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

, . 'f*,/

Art. 64. When one of the provinces reaches the period of Con-
stitutionalism, the division of power between the central and the
Local Governments shall be defined in detail by law in accordance
with the ^^Outline of National Reconstruction.''

Chapter VIL Organization of the Governments

SECTION I. THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

Art. 65. The National Government shall exercise all the govern-
ing powers of the Republic of China.

Art. 66. The National Government shall have supreme command
over the land, naval and air forces.

Art. 67. The National Government shall have the power to
declare war, to negotiate peace and to conclude treaties.

Art, 68. The National Government shall exercise the power of
granting amnesties, pardons, reprieves and restitution of civic rights.

Art, 69, The National Government shall exercise the power of
conferring medals and decorations of honor.

Art. 70. The National Government shall compile and publish a
budget and financial statement of the national revenues and ex-
penditures for each fiscal year.

Art. 71. The National Government shall be composed of the fol-
lowing five Yuan: the Executive Yuan, the Legislative Yuan, the
Judicial Yuan, the Examination Yuan and the Control Yuan, as
well as various Ministries and Commissions.

Art. 72. The National Government shall have a President and
an appropriate number of State Councillors, who shall be selected
and appointed by the Central Executive Committee of the Kuo-
mintang. The number of State Councillors shall be separately de-
termined by law.

Art, 73. The President of the National Government shall repre-
sent the National Government both internally and internationally.

Art. 74. The Presidents of the five Yuan and the Pleads of the
various Ministries and Commissions shall be appointed or dismissed
in accordance with law by the National Government at the instance
of the President of the National Government.

Art. 75. All laws shall be promulgated and Mandates issued upon
the signature of the President of the National Government accord-
ing to law.

Art. 76. The various Yuan, Ministries or Commissions may,
according to law, issue orders.

APPENDIX

235

Art._ 77. The organization of the National Gover-niritent and of
the various Yuan, Ministries and Commissions shall be separately

determined by law., v, , . :,' '

SECTION 2. THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Art. 78. In^each province, a Provincial Government shall he
established, which shall attend to the administration of provincial
affairs under the direction of the National Government. Its organ-
ization shall be separately determined by law.

Art. 79. When, as stipulated in Article 16 of the ‘'Oiitline of
National Reconstruction,*' a province reaches the period of Con-
stitutionalism, the (Provincial) Assembly of People’s Delegates may
elect a Provincial Governor (Sheng-Chang).

Art. 80. The system of local government in Mongolia and Tibet
shall be determined separately by law in the light of the local condi-
tions.

Art. 81. In each district (Hsien), a District Government shall be
established, which shall attend to the administration of district
affairs under the direction of the Provincial Governments. Its organ-
ization shall be separately determined by law.

Art. 82. In each of the districts, a district autonomy preparatory
committee shall be organized to carry out the preparations as pro-
vided for in Article 8 of the "‘Outline of National Reconstruction.”
Its organization shall be separately determined by law.

Art. 83. Municipalities may be established in localities where
industry and commerce, population or other special conditions war-
rant. The organization of such Municipalities shall be separately
determined by Law.

Chapter VIII. Annex

Art. 84. All laws which are in conflict with this Yueh Fa (Pro-
visional Constitution) shall be null and void.

Art. 85. The power of interpreting this Yueh Fa shall be exer-
cised by the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang of
China.

Art. 86. a draft of the (Permanent) Constitution (Hsien Fa)
shall be prepared by the Legislative Yuan on the basis of the “Out-
line of National Reconstruction” as well as the achievements during
the political tutelage and constitutional periods. The said draft shall
be duly made known to the people at large in preparation for its
adoption and enforcement at the opportune moment.

236

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Art. 87! When a majority of the provinces in the country reach
the period of Constitutionalism — that is, when district autonomy
has been completely instituted throughout each of such provinces —
then the National Government shall immediately summon a Na-
tional People's Congress (Kuo-Min-Ta-Hui) to decide upon the
adoption and promulgation of the Hsien Fa (Permanent Constitu-
tion).' '■ ■■ ■

Art. 88. The present Yueh Fa (Provisional Constitution) shall be
enacted by the National People's Convention (Kuo-Min-Hui-I) and
forwarded to the National Government for promulgation.

Art. 89. The present Yueh Fa shall come into force from the date
of promulgation.

INDEX

Agrarian probiem, iSij 190 IF.

Anfu clique, 50
Angio-Chinese War, First, 203
Anhwei, 48, 174, 189, 212
Anking, 175
Australia, 6

Baku, 198, 204
Banditry, 192, 197, 221
“Battle of Concessions,’* 10
Berlin, 26, 37
Blood brotherhood, 23
Blucher (Galens), 108, ii8, 121, 124,
166, 173

Borodin, Michael, 72 IF., 91 IF.,
97 IF., 1 10 IF., 118, 1 21, 124,
188, 198 ff., 205

Boxer Rebellion, 4, 16, 24 IF., 62,
99, 223
Brothels, 71
Brussels, 26, 37
Buck, J. L., cited, 192
Buddha, 169, 178
Buddhism, 51
Budget, national, 13, 140

Canada, 70
Cantlie, Sir James, 9
Canton, 5, 26 IF., 66 IF., 72, 96
Censorate, 146

Central Executive Committee, Ku-
omingtang, 95 ff., 104 IF,, 108,
iiiff., 148 ff., 165 IF., 170 IF-,
180 IF., 188, 206

Central Military and Research
Councils, 146

Central Political Council, 141,.
■. 148 E, 1-55, 164 ,

Central Supervisory Committee .

i47W.,iShiS^ *

Chang Cheng-wu, 36
Chang Chi, 133
Chang Chih-tung, 10 E,

Chang Chin«chiang, 107, n i E ■
Chang Fa-K’uei, 109, 129, 173!,,

Chang Hsueh-liang, 136, 172 c,
176 E., 225 E,

Chang Hsun, 30, 49 E.

Chang Huei-chan, 195 E.

Chang Tso-lin, 51 E., 58 E,, 61, 64,
70, 75, no, 1 16, 119, 124, 134,
162E., 171

Chang Tsung-ch’ang, 113, 124, 134,
162, 164

Chang Yun-i, 213
Changchow, 175
Changsha, 109, 12B, 195
Chao Heng-Pi, 109
Chapman, H. 0 ., cited, 204
Che Kien-jou, 25 E.

Chekiang, 44, 48
Ch’en Chl-mei, 92
Chen Chi-tang, 179, 224
Ch cn Ch*iung-ming, 68 E,, 74, 87,
98

Ch’en, Eugene, 107, no, 114, lai,
123, 225

Chen, F, C., cited, 8
Ch*en Kung-po, 178, 206
Chen Shao-pai, 8, 25

^37

238

CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Ch’en Tu-hs'iti, ^04 fF.

Ch’eng Chien, 113, 115
Chengtu, 29
Ch'i Hsieh-yuan, 55, 60
Cilia Hsi Yen, cited, 217

Cliiang Kai-shek, 90 ff., 97 ff., 103 ff.,
Ill £, 117 ff., 124 ff., 131 ff.,
135 ff., 162 ff., 168 ff., 177 ff.,
183 ff., 201, 205, 218

Chicherin, 99
Chihii, 48, 50

China Correspondence, quoted,
207ff., 2I7 ff.

China Weekly Review, cited, 217
Chinese Eastern Railway, 173
Chinese Progress, 14, 16
Ch*ing, Prince, 20
Chinputang, 35
Chou An Hwei, 40
Chou I-Ch’un, 212
Christianity and missionaries, 5, 6,
8, 12, 17, 99 fF., 193, 196 ff-
Chu P’ei-teh, 105
Chu Teh, 212

Ch'un, Prince Regent, 19, 27, 58
Committee of Public Safety, 64
Communism, 71 ff., 105 ff., iii,
1 16, 130, 168, 188 ff-
Concessions and settlements, 29,
76 ff., 90, 216
Confucianism, ii
Consortium, 28

Constitution, provisional, 183 ff.;

see also Organic Law, 1928
Constitutional compact, 38
Convention, National People's, 183,
226

Customs, maritime, 72

Dai, S. A., 210
Defense of Terrorism, 191
d'EHa, P. M., cited, 8, 77
Directorate, Canton, 66
Disbandment and Reorganization
Committee, 182
Divide and rule, 5
Dutch East Indies, 27

East Indies, 6

Economic rehabilitation, 138, 182
Education, modern, 17, 1S2, 193, 232
Eider Brother Society, 9
‘‘Elder Statesmen," 9 5
Empress Dowager, see Tzu-hsi
England, 9, 28, 30, 41, 70 ff., 175
Envoys, foreign, in Peking, 21
Examinations, classical, 17
Exhortations To Learn, 1 1
Extra-territoriality, 76, 90

Fang Che-ming, 213
Feng Kuo-chang, 43, 47, 49
Feng Yu-hsiang, 52 ff., 56 ff., 61,
75 > 94 , 103 ff-, n 6 ff., 122 ff.,
128, 133 ff., 168 ff., 178
Fengtien, 48

Finances of Nationalist China, 138,
140, 168, 171, 179

First Party Congress, Kuomintang,
73 > 1 % 93

Fischer, Louis, cited, 77, 93, 104
Five Power Constitution, 84 ff., 228
Flag, Chinese, 188, 229
Formosa, 26
France, 29 ff., 72
Fu-kueh, 82 ff.

Fukien, 25, 48, 66, 189, 195, 212
“Fundamentals of National Recon-
struction," 79 ff.

INDEX

Galens, Jfi? Blficher '

Germany, 29 j 48, 70
Goodnow, Frank J., 41
Government Council, 134
Guilds, United Commercial, 74

Hamadan, Al., 200
Han Fu-chu, 168
Hangchow, 109 IF.

Hankow, 28 ff., 57, 109 IF., 226; see
Wuhan

Hanyang, 30, 109; also Wuhan

Harbin, 173

Harper, S. N., 203

Hart, Sir Robert, 223

Hawaii, 6 IF., 9, 25

Hioki, Minister, 40 IF,

Flo Chien, 121
Ho En, 202
Ho Lung, 129
Ho Siang-ku, 202
Ho Ying-ch’in, 1 13, 226
Hoang Hoa Kang, 28
Holcomb, A, N., cited, 198
Honan, 168, 189, 212
Hongkong, 7 ff., 25, 70, 98, 102,
109, 177

Hopei, see Chihli
Hsi Tai-yuan, 212
Hsiang-shan, district of, 7
Hsu Chi-chen, 212
Hsu Chien, 206
Hsu Chung-sze, 97 IF.

Hsu Shih-chang, 50 IF., 68
Hsuan T'ung, Emperor, 19, 27, 32,

49 ff-, 57 ff-

Hu Han-min, 26 ff., 93 ff., 104 ff.,

115, 133, 141, i 83 ff-

Huang Fu, 132

.239';:

Huang Shing, 26 ff., 30 ff., 37, 44,

92

Huang Shao-hung, 179, 224
Hunan, 66, 109, 189, 192, 195 ff,
201 IF., 212

“Hundred Days of Reform,” 13 ff.
Hung Hsien, 41
Hung Wu, 32

Hunter, E., cited, 192, 216 ■

Hupeh, 48, 177, 1 89, 201 IF., 21 2 '

Ichang, 173

“Imperialism,”' 3, 7.1, 76, loiff., .
197, 210

Impressment of laborers, 72
Indo-China, 27, 203
Internaiional Development oj Ckina^
85^

“Ironsides,” 173, 177 IF.; see also
Chang Fa-k’uei
Italy, 72

Japan, ii IF., 19, 23, 26 IF., 39 ff.,
55, 60, 72, 124, 134 ff.

Jehoi, 33, 55 ff.

Jenks, J. W., 88
Joffe,A. A,,7 i,io7, ;I94 ■ .

Jung Lu, 23

Kahn, Ida, 216 IF.

Kaifeng, 176
Kalgan, 60

■ Kang Yu-wei, 5, 10 IF., 16, 25, 40,

49 ff.

Kansu, 168

Karakhan, Ambassador, 198, 204
Kian, 216

. Kiangsi, 66, 177, 189, 192, 201, 212

■ Kiangsu, 113; see also Shanghai
Kiaochow, 39

240 CHINA IN REVOLUTION

Km-TeKXhen, S13, 216
Ko-iao-kweij 9
Koo An-ping, 203
Koo, Wellingtonj 56
Korea, 22
Ku Meng-yu, 206
Kung, H. H., 186
Kung Ho-chung, 213
Kunghotang, 35
Kungtsantang, 204
Kuo Sung-ling, 61 ff.

Kuominchunj 57, 62 if., 168, 1741?.
Kuomingtang, 35 ff., 42, 68 fF.,

73 ff., 94, 108 ff., 1 1 5, 129, 132 ff,,
139, 147 ff., 160 ff., 165 ff,

Kuo-Min-Hui-I, 226
Kwang-hsu, Emperor, ii, 19, 23
Kwangsi, 25, 55, 66, 95, 109, 139 ff.,
166, 173, 179, 212

Kwangtung, 6 ff,, 14, 25, 44, 55>
66, 74, 95 ff-, 108, 189,212
Kweichow, 43, 66, 209

La Jeunesse^ 206
Lao-tsze, 14

Law codification, 140, 222
Laymen's Foreign Missions In-
quiry, 21 1

Lea, Homer, 26

League of Nations, 74

Learriy see Exhortations To Learn

Lee, E. S. B., cited, 182

Legations, 182

Lenin, 99, 109, 191, 197, 21 1

Li Chi-shen (Chai-sum), 128 ff.,

131, 133. IS 5 . 164

Li Fu-lin, 129
Li Hung-chang, 22, 24
Li Lih-san, 206

Li Ta-chao, 204

Li Tsung-jen, 133 ff., 155, 164, 179
Li Yuan-hung, 29, 31, 35, 37, 42 ff.,
47 ff-> 70

Liang Ch’i-ch'ao, 13 ff., 16, 25, 35,
40,42

Liao Chung-kai, 93, 95, 97, 105, 206

Lincoln, President, 25

Liu Lu-yun, 186

Liu Pao-yi, 66

Liu Yang, 213

London, 37

Loyang, 57, 174

Lu Yung-hsiang, 55

Lu Yung- ting, 66 ff.

Ma Shao-chun, 179
Macao, 5, 9
Malaysia 5, 6, 27
Manchouli, 173, 212
Manchuria, 61 ff., 64, 172 ff., 178
Manchus, 3 ff., 18, 22, 30, 39, 82 ff.,
91, 220 ff.

Mandate of Heaven, 2 ff.
“Manifesto,” 79 ff., 90
Mao Tze-tung, 213
Marx, Karl, 88 ff., 189 ff., 197, 203
Mass education, 182, 222, 233
“Massacres,” 63, 96
Material Reconstruction, 80 ff.
Medical science, 222
Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary,
81 ff.

Merchant volunteers, 75
Military conferences, 138, 161 ff.
Min PaOy orj
Ming dynasty, 32
Missionaries, see Christianity
Mohammedan Rebellion, 162

INDEX

Mongolia, 6o, 63
Morrison, George Ernest, 31
Morrison, Robert, 5
Moscow, see Russia
Mukden, 172

Nanking, 30, 57, 113, 115, loq, 173,
229; incident of March, 1927,
175; Provisional Assembly, 32
Nanking Road shootings, 96
National Assembly, First, 19
National People^s Convention, 183,
226

Opium, 72, 21 1

Organic Law, 1928, 142 fF., 171
Oriental Nations, Congress, 198
Overseas Chinese, 6, 9, 74

Pai Ch'ung-hsi, 113, 136, 179
‘Tamiat Lenina,'* 116, 120
Pan-Asiatic Congress, 77
Pao-Chia^ 181
Paoting, 46, 51
Paris, 26, 66
Parks, public, 222
Parliament, 18, 35 IF., 48 ff., 54,
65, 68

Patriarchal family, 190 ff.

P’eiping, 171, 173
Peiyang military party, 48, 50
Peking, 48, 56, 59, 75, 116, 130
Penang, 27
P'eng Teh-huai, 213
Pengpu, 175
Philippine Islands, 6
Pi yiin-ssu, 170

Plans for National Reconstruction^

19 =^29

Political Bureau, 104, 206

Political Training ksthute, 198
Poor Feasants’ Associations, 209
Poor Women’s Associations, 209

Popov, 204
Portugal, 72

Pratda^ Moscow, quoted, 199 It.
Price, Frank W., 86, 88
Price, M. T., cited, 191
Provincial autonomy, 20, 47, 69
Provisional Assembly, 32
Provisional Constitution, 183 ff.
Psychological Reconstruction^ 80 IF.
Pukow, 174
Purple Mountain, 170

Railroads, 28, 168, 173 ff., 376
Red Aid International, 209
Red armies, 200 ff., 210
Red Spear Societies, 214
Red Trade Unions, 209
Reinsch, Minister, 42
“Reorganization Loan,” 37
Reorganization and Disbandment
Conferences, 169
Reorganizationists, 172 ff., 176
Responsibility, official, 181
Revolutionary Red Aid Society,
207 ff. ■

Revolutionary Students* Unions,
209

Russia, 6a IF., 70 ff., 103 ff., no,
116, 168, 190 ff., 195, 202
Russians, 29, 41, 91 IF., 97, 116, 130,
i 75 >iS 9 >i 97

St. Petersburg, 37
Salisbury, I-ord, 9

San Min Chu J, 25 £, 79 ff., B6 ff,,
106, 231 ff.

242 CHINA IN REVOLUTION

f

Sarvisj Guy^W#», journal quoted,

2II, 2i3fF.

Secret sodeties, 4, 9, 25
Self-examination, 80
Seoul, 22

September government, 128
Settlements, see Concessions
Shakee-Shameen affair, 96
Shanghai, 31, 36, 75 ff., 1x3, 127,
175, 198, 204 ff.

Shansi, 178

Shantung, 40, 48, 168, 178
Shao Li-tzu, 186

Sheng Shuan-hivei (Kung-pao), 28

Shensi, 168, 178

Shih Yu-san, 168, 174 ff.

Siam, 27

Sian, 30

Siberia, 63

Singapore, 6

Sino-Japanese War, 5

Six principles, promulgation of, 141

Slogans, 216

Social Interpretation of History ^ 88 ff.
Social Reconstruction^ 80 ff.

Socony Hill, 113 ff.

Soong, T. V., ixo, II 5, 128, 133,
159*

Soviets, see Communism
Stalin, 103 ff.

Standing Committee of the C.E.C.,
183

Student movement, 66 ff.

Suifenho, 173

Sun ch’ van-fang, 60 ff., 109 ff., 124,
i”34

Sun Fo, 74, 97, 106, no, II 8, 127,
■I32ff., 225

Sun, Mme, 101,110, 122 ff., 169, 199
Sun Yat-sen 5,, 7 ff., 22 ff, 42 ff., 58,
65 ff., 78 if., 94 ff., loi, 109, 1 13,
132,169,194,221

Sun Yat-sen University, 198
Sung Chiao-jen, 36
Sze Zung-tung, 206
Szechwan, 28, 48, 66, 21 1

Taxation, 72, 178, 193, 210 ff., 214
Tai Chi-t'ao, 93, 141, 145, 183
Taiping Rebellion, 4
Taiyuan, 171
Tai-yuan-shuai, 64
Taku forts, 62

T'an P’ing-shan, 104 ff., 204 ff.

T'an Tzu-t’ung, 13 ff., 16
T'an Yen-K'ai, 104, iii, 128, 133,
H3,

T'ang Chi-yao, 66 ff, 95 ff.

T’ang Shao-yi, 31, 66 ff., 225
Tang Sheng-chih, 109 ff., 112,
1 17 ff., 124, 128, 175

Tangpu, 177
Temple Hill, 215
Teng Hsi-hsien, 212
Teng Kan-yuan, 212
Teng Yen-ta, 108, no, 124, 206
Third International, see Communism
Three people’s principles, see San
MinChuI

Three phases of the Revolution,

83 ff.

Tibet, 209

Tientsin, 53 ff , 58, 61 ff.

Ting Wei-fen, 183, 186
Toilers of the Far East, Congress,
198

INDEX

Torture, 195 ff., 217 fF,

Toynbee, A J., cited, 173
Treachery, 55 fF., 61
Trinidad, 107
Trotsky, 99, 103, 1 91, 195
Tsai Shen-hsi, 212
Ts'ai Yuan-p’ei, 133, 186
Tsao Ao, 42 ff.

Tsao Kum, 51, 53, 56 ff., 64
Tsao Ta-ching, 212
Tsen Shun-hsuan, 66
Tseng Ju-hsiang, 212
Tsinan, 134, 177
Tsingtao, 40
Tsinhal, 209
Tsitsihar, 173
Tsui-hetig, 7 ff.

Tuan.ch’i-jui, 44, 47!?., 58, 63,, 75,.
94, 107

Tuan Teh-chang, 213
Tuchuns, 46, 48, 65, 95, 102, 108
Tung Men-Hivei, . 26, 8 1 , 98
Tung Wehmin,. 212
Tupans, 59

Turkestan, Chinese, 209
Tutelage, 83, 230
Twenty-one demands, 40
Tzii-hsi, 10 ff., 15, 19, 23, 30

^‘Unequal Treaties, 76
United States, 9, 25, 27, 30, 70,
72, 197

Urga, 60

Versailles, Treaty of, 51, 71

Waichow, 26, 69

Wang, C. T., 26, 37, 94, 132, 158

■m'':

Wang ching-wei, 79, 93 £,
-.■■■lojff., 108, no, 112, lit,
121 ff,, 127 ff., 133, 165, 174 ff,

"224 ff.

■ Wang Ch'ung-hui, 94, 133, 141, 146,

186

' Wang Kwang, 214
Wang Ngan-shih, 189
Wei Pong-hing, 97

■ W^ng Tung-ho, 12
Western Hills faction, 94, 96
Whampoa Military Academy, 79,

97, 99, 108,212

■ White Russians, 55

■ White Terror, 208 ff.

Will, of Sun Yat-sen, 79
William, Maurice, 88 ff.

Woo, T, C., cited, 92
Workers and Peasants, 93, 95
World War,. 38, 66, 85
Wu.Chao-chu, 105, 127, 226

Wu Pei-fu, 51 ff., 57, 70, 75, 102,:
109, 117.23-2, 134

Wu Ting, Emperor, 82
Wu Ting-fang, 31 ff., 35, 66 ff»

Wu Tze-hui, 79, 186
Wuchang, 28, 109; see also Wuhan \
Wuhan, 30, 52, iii ff., iiSff.,:
166 ff., 188, 195, 206

Wusung, 175 '

Yang Hao-ling, 8
Yang Tu, 40 ^

■Yangcheng, 8

Yangtze Engineering Works, 214 ;;
Yangtze River, and Valley, 25, 65 ff.,

.. ■■:i 75 , 2 i 4 ff.

Yeh Ch’u-ts*ang, 186
.YehTing, 129

244 ‘ CHINA IN^ REVOLUTION

Yen Hsi-shrJ 128, 133 fF., 169,

Young China Party, 8, 25 fF.

Young Communist Pravda, 200
Young Socialist League, 205
Yu Shao-huan, 8
Yu Yu-jen, 183

Yuan Shih-kai, 14, 22 IF., 42 ff., 107
Yuan (government boards), 142 fF.,
i8r, 184 fF.

Yueh Fa, 228
Yung Wing, 17
Yungch^ng, Emperor, 6
Yunnan, 43, 55, 66, 94

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